"What name should we give this decade?"

(Sounds like a Po Bronson title:  What Should I Do With My Life?  Why Do I Love These People?)

A reader who is not a blogger, Rod Jean, asks me if I would raise this question for New Year's Eve.  His suggestion:

The decade is now 70% over.  We ought to be able to identify it's [sic] zeitgeist. If we try to name a decade at its beginning, we will usually miss the mark.  See, e.g., the Fabulous Fifties and the Soaring Sixties.  The problem is that psychological decades don't follow the calendar.  The Twenties ended a couple of months early, on Black Friday.  The Forties started on December 7, 1941.  The Fifties did not really end until November 22, 1963.  I am not sure, but I think the Sixties lasted until conclusion of direct U.S. troop involvement in Viet Nam, in early 1973.     Tom Wolfe nailed the 70's as the Me Decade.  Just about everybody agreed the 80's were the Greed Decade.  I don't know whether the 90's got a moniker, although a great many of us look back on them as the Good Old Days.  So, I ask you to throw out to your readers the question of naming this decade.  You can start with my nomination.  I believe The Fearful Decade began on September 11, 2001.  The chief fear is of terrorism, which has led us to compromise civil liberties.  However, we also fear global warming and other environmental catastrophes, including Avian Flu.  We fear the growing economic power of China.  We fear a shortage of fossil fuels, and we fear the use of nuclear energy to avoid excessive dependence on them.  Conservatives fear gay marriage and euthanasia, so they end up with mean spirited discrimination and the crusade over Terri Shiavo.  Liberals fear the reversal of Roe v. Wade, so they support the barbarism of partial birth abortion.  Many liberals fear the imposition of a Christian theocracy, we get into silly debates over whether "under God" should be left in the Pledge of Allegiance.

As far as I'm concerned, this issue was resolved at the beginning of the decade.  I wish I could remember where I saw a debate over what to call the bloody thing -- it wasn't this Slate piece by Timothy Noah.  Just about exactly two years ago, he wrote, "Half the 21^st century's first decade is gone and still no one knows what to call it."

The most logical candidate is a term often used to describe the first decade of the 20^th century: the "aughts." But despite heavy promotion from journalists and others, it's never caught on. (It must have struck most folks as too archaic—note my compulsion to surround it with quotation marks—or perhaps too precious.) In 1996, Barbara Walraff of the Atlantic reported in her "Word Court" column that there was much talk of calling the coming decade the "double-ohs." That never caught on, either. Scott Pederson, a self-described "entrepreneur," somehow managed to get a trademark on "Naughty Aughties," which is even more creaky than the "aughts," and he's been promoting that term energetically ever since. "Become an official licensee of Naughty Aughties®," he invites visitors to his Web site, "and capitalize on this once in a century licensing opportunity." Strike three.

By not coming up with a name, society has created a serious rhetorical problem that spills over into the social sciences.

No, the piece I read much closer to the decade's start nailed it, I thought.  Not sure if it was after September 11 or even before it; if it had been after, surely it would have caught on, because it says exactly what Rod is saying (the Fearful Decade) in a funnier, catchier way.

It's The Oh-Ohs.  (Spelled '00s.  Pronounced "Uh-ohs.") 

If you have a better idea, let's hear it.

And while we're on the subject:

HAPPY 007!

Comments

[Seth Chalmer]

We may never agree on it again. We're not credulous enough, not unified enough, not conformist anymore to agree. We're postmodern now, and we'll read way too much into it. The key proof for this is that we need to have the conversation. Imagine people in January of 1927 parsing every possible implication of "roaring". I can't see it. In the party of decades, while the twenties through the eighties all work the room in their own special style, finding attractive themes to take home, the nineties and aughts are nerdily sitting on the couch discussing social dynamics and analyzing why they can't get a date.

Or maybe it's that the postmodern zeitgeist suffers from multiple personalities, and they are Jerry Falwell and Woody Allen.

Or maybe every era was like this and it just got oversimplified in hindsight.

[m. takhallus]

The "Twin Zeroes."

[amba]

Why does that remind me of Hooters?

[Rod]

After reading Amba's comment. it strikes me the designation of this decade has two possible applications. The first is a simple name. Most decades are identified by their first digit, such as the 20's, the 30's, etc. The 00's do not give rise to a similar pronunciation convention. I like Amba's suggestion on how to pronounce them.

However, I was asking a slightly different question. How do you identify the prevailing mentality that characterizes a decade? The 70's are still the 70's in name, but "Me Decade" captured their ethos. The Oh-Oh's touches on what I think is the prevailing mentality. I am asking what you think captures it.

[Horace Jeffery Hodges]

How about "The Nervous Nulls"? Or "The Noughty Naughts"? Or "The Awful Aughts"? Or "The Offal Ohs"?

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

[Sarah Rolph]

I use the term aughts. As much as possible, in fact!

How about the Odd Aughts. I like Awful Aughts, too. And Uh-Ohs does capture the spirit nicely. None of them is fun enough to say to catch on, probably (which is somewhat of a problem with Aughts in general, I will admit).

Maybe a century is too little in its first decade to get a name. We didn't start last century until the Roaring Twenties, right? I shudder to think what our Twenties will be like...

Happy New Year!

[amba]

There's always the oo's -- the Ooze!

[Joe]

I will go with the fear decade....the Y2K talk started in 97 or 98 and people started stocking up on Peanut Butter and dried beans........it has been all downhill since.

[Rand Careaga]

I do not endorse it, but I predict that the decade will end up being referred to as "the two thousands" (as in "we bought the house sometime in the early two thousands, maybe 2002 or 2003"). I'll also predict that beginning three years from now we'll start to say "twenty," as in "twenty-ten."

[amba]

Good prediction!

[reader_iam]

The "Them" Decade.

[Rod]

Reader:
I like the "Them" Decade. It is a single word which describes our tribal change of focus. When will there ever be an "Us" Decade?

[Robert]

The "naughty aughties". (H/T Cecil Adams.)