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Minimizing the Number of Syllables when Pronouncing Years

English Language & Usage Asked by Alexander L. Hayes on October 4, 2021

Question

Do native English speakers minimize the number of syllables when they pronounce years?

Furthermore, is there linguistics/psychology literature on this phenomenon?


Observations

Here is a table showing how I pronounce some years (I don’t know how to render into the IPA, but I hope this is clear enough).

Year Pronounced (R) Pedantic (E) (E – R)
1701 seventeen-o-one (5) one thousand seven hundred one (8) 3
1777 seventeen-seventy-seven (8) one thousand seven hundred seventy seven (12) 4
1901 nineteen-o-one (4) one thousand nine hundred one (7) 3
1999 nineteen-ninety-nine (5) one thousand nine hundred ninety nine (9) 4
2000 two-thousand (3) two thousand (3) 0
2001 two-thousand-one (4) two thousand one (4) 0
2007 two-thousand-seven (5) two thousand seven (5) 0
2009 two-thousand-nine (4) two thousand nine (4) 0
2010 twenty-ten (3) two thousand ten (4) 1
2011 twenty-eleven (5) two thousand eleven (6) 1
2020 twenty-twenty (4) two thousand twenty (5) 1

Year is a numeral representation of a year, Pronounced is how I pronounce the year, Pedantic shows how I would pronounce the number formally, (numbers in parentheses) show my count for the number of syllables in each word. (E – R) shows the difference between the number of syllables in the pedantic and pronounced cases, representing how many syllables I avoid pronouncing by taking a shortcut. Notice that (E – R) is always greater than or equal to zero.

In each row, the way I pronounce a year appears to be near the lowest possible number of syllables that still communicates the number.
An exception is 1777. I could save one syllable by saying "one seven seven seven"—seven syllables instead of eight.

I do not pronounce 2009 as "twenty-o-nine," but that pronunciation does not seem bad since it has the same number of syllables as "two-thousand-nine."

Some Comments and Prior Reading

I noticed this at the transitions between the 2000, 2010, and 2020 decades; and currently the "minimizing syllables" hypothesis is my best guess for why I often hear years pronounced differently.

An article that discussed how years in the first decades (00s) remarked on differences between American English and British English pronunciation, but the majority of its focus was whether the term ‘aughts’ was used historically[1]

… Americans living at the turn of the century referred to individual years as “aughts,” meaning zero, as in “nineteen aught one,” “nineteen aught two,” etc.

"Nineteen aught one" and "Nineteen o one" have the same number of syllables by my count.

A Macmillan Dictionary Blog post speculated on how we might pronounce years that haven’t occurred yet (e.g. 2100, 2101), and claimed (without citing) a BBC newsreaders poll that people usually pronounced 2009 as "twenty oh nine," then concluded:[2]

As for why this way of saying years arose in the first place, I suspect it is simply because it is easier and quicker – try saying 1777 both ways to see what I mean.

There are a few previous English Language & Usage StackExchange posts that deal with similar topics:

… but neither fit the ‘minimize syllables’ portion.

The accepted answer to What are the rules for pronunciation of years in English? deals with this, but doesn’t cite sources.

Footnotes

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