1905

Zack   Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:07 am GMT
How do you all pronounce this year? I pronounce it "nineteen five".
sadassa   Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:10 am GMT
It's "nineteen and five" who ever thought you English
Lazar   Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:30 am GMT
I pronounce it "nineteen oh five". Just today on TV I heard a native speaker refer to the year 1908 as "nineteen eight", but it seemed odd to me. As for the paradigm of "nineteen and five", I've never heard that used.
furrykef   Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:30 am GMT
Definitely "ninteen oh five" for me. I haven't heard it pronounced any other way. ("Nineteen aught five" is probably possible, since I know that '05 used to be pronounced "aught five", but even if it's possible, it's rarely ever said that way anymore.)

- Kef
Skippy   Sat Oct 06, 2007 5:24 am GMT
nineteen oh five... never heard it any other way.
Guest   Sat Oct 06, 2007 6:12 am GMT
I agree with "nineteen oh five".
Guest   Sun Oct 07, 2007 1:57 am GMT
"Nineteen aught five" is probably possible, since I know that '05 used to be pronounced "aught five", but even if it's possible, it's rarely ever said that way anymore."

Yes the word aught (for zero) is rarely used anymore when speaking of dates. It is still very commonly used though (at least in the US) when referring to rifle cartridges, specifically the 30-06 Springfield round. Most shooters/hunters wouldn’t know what you meant if you said a ".30 caliber model 1906 Springfield". It is invariably called a “thirty aught six”. The .30-06 was the standard US military round for 50 years (until about 1957) It is still a very popular hunting round.

This use of aught has always been a puzzle to me. A .308 (7.62 Nato) is just a "three o eight" and never a "three aught eight".
Kathy   Sun Oct 07, 2007 7:51 am GMT
I agree with "nineteen oh five", too.
Nearly all of people I know pronounce it in this way.
Damian in SW15   Sun Oct 07, 2007 1:46 pm GMT
Many people refer to the current year as "two thousand and seven". I'm not one of them. According to them, today is Sunday, the seventh of October, two thousand and seven. By the same logic, then, the year 1905 should be referred to as "one thousand nine hundred and five". Right? 07.10.1905: The seventh of October, one thousand nine hundred and five". God knows what day of the week it was but who cares. Nobody would say it that way, so why the double standard? A clear case for uniformity - we are now in Twenty -o-seven.
Guest   Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:21 pm GMT
<<Many people refer to the current year as "two thousand and seven". I'm not one of them. According to them, today is Sunday, the seventh of October, two thousand and seven. By the same logic, then, the year 1905 should be referred to as "one thousand nine hundred and five". Right? 07.10.1905: The seventh of October, one thousand nine hundred and five". God knows what day of the week it was but who cares. Nobody would say it that way, so why the double standard? A clear case for uniformity - we are now in Twenty -o-seven.>>

The reason is that while "nineteen oh five" has less syllables than "one thousand nine hundred and five", "two thousand seven" and "twenty oh seven" have the same number of syllables.
Skippy   Sun Oct 07, 2007 4:10 pm GMT
I say "two thousand seven"