The Decade with No Name

I was born in the 50’s, survived the 60’s and the 70’s, became an adult in the 80’s and started a family in the 90’s. All of which got me and a lot of other folks used to having a name for each decade. I remember that, toward the end of the 90’s, there was a lot of hand-wringing about what to call that next decade, the one that started with 2000, the one we’re in now.

Yes, I know. The decade and the millenium really started in 2001. But 1970 was quite rightly the first year of the 70’s and not the last of the 60’s. That’s because you started saying the year with the word “seventy”.

Some predicted our current decade would be called the “Aughties”. Other, even lamer, ideas were proffered.

None stuck.

Here we are, about to turn the page to 2009, the last year of the Decade with No Name and people still refer back to the 80’s and 90’s but just don’t mention this block of years as a decade with any identity. I think that, to a certain extent, “21st century” has filled the void. But it looks like we’ll slouch all the way past it without having settled on a name for this decade.

Perhaps it’ll pick up a nickname during the Teens or Twenties.