Rough year and really not the best decade, whatever it was called, I prefer the "aughts". Here's a take on it from Wikipedia which I like-
'Unlike previous decades, the 2000s have not yet attained a universally accepted name in the English-speaking world.
Orthographically, the decade can be written as "2000s" or "'00s". Some people read "2000s" as "two-thousands" and thus simply refer to the decade as "the two-thousands". Some read it as the "00s" (pronounced "Ohs"), as the single years within the decade are usually referred to as starting with an "Oh", such as "Oh-Eight". On January 1, 2000, the
BBC listed "The Noughties" (derived from "nought" (a word used for zero in many English-speaking countries), by analogy with e.g. "The Eighties" for 1980-1989) as a potential moniker for the new decade
. Others have advocated the term "The Aughts", which was widely used at the beginning of the previous century, sometimes even combining it with "Naught" to put a linguistic twist on the time period, such as "The Naught Aughts", "The Naughts", "The Aughts", and even "The Naughty Aughties".
Previous decades that begin a new century have generally been referred to as "The Hundreds", for example "The Nineteen-Hundreds". These various names for the decade 2000-2009 have been suggested due to the ambiguity of the term "the two-thousands," which could apply to any of the following: the decade, 2000-2009; the century, 2000-2099; or the millenium, 2000-2999." This is also an issue for the following (and current) decade, the
2010s.'
Looking forward to a better 2010. The Chronicle had a good review of the Top 10 Environment Stories from 2009, worth a read-
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=54378
All the best for a wonderful, prosperous and green 2010.
Chris
