Word: ones
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...ONE WORD, TWO MEANINGS. MOMENT AS IN MOMENTARY, AN EVENT OR PASSION that is here, now, quick--then gone. Bush's last press conference, Madoff's comeuppance, a presidential puppy, Tiger's bad lie. Steroid scandals, swine-flu panics, airplane pilots good and bad. Already these fragments have the memorial feeling of snapshots in an old shoe box. But the other meaning is moment as in momentous, things that mattered in some lasting way, images destined not for shoe boxes but for history books. A year that dawned to the chime of change soon got bogged down in intractable troubles...
This gap in the English language shouldn't come as a surprise; the debate over what to name the first decade of this century has been going on since the middle decades of the last one. The 1900s never got a name beyond vague constructions like the turn of the century. One popular term--the aughts--has proved too archaic (and tricky to spell) to be broadly revived. Wordsmiths tried new coinages starting early: in 1963 a New Yorker writer suggested "Twenty oh-oh" for the far-off year 2000, a "nervous name for what is sure...
Mounting Y2K hysteria overshadowed debate in the late '90s, as many worried less about what to call the next decade and more about whether there would be one. After the world failed to end at the stroke of midnight, linguistic experts promised that a nickname would bubble up over time. Despite creative attempts--including Ryan Guerra's decade-long quest to popularize the Unies via brochures and blog manifestos--none has. We've gotten by for so long calling this decade the 21st century--a term that will sound ridiculous in 50 years--that we might as well get started...
...crash. Unemployment rose to 10.2%--the highest rate in 26 years--despite the Obama Administration's stimulus efforts, which pumped billions into the economy. Detroit was hit especially hard: Ford saw a steep drop in sales, Chrysler was taken over by Italian firm Fiat, and GM briefly entered bankruptcy. One bright spot was Wall Street, where stocks reversed much of 2008's decline. The economy showed encouraging growth in the third quarter, but with jobs still scarce, the impact of the Great Recession lingers...
...terrorists. Britain's denial of entry to Abdulmutallab may in itself not have required the U.S. to be informed, British officials said. But even without that clue, Abdulmutallab's recent stay in Yemen, combined with his father's warning and the fact that he paid cash for a one-way ticket and didn't check any luggage, should have been sufficient to set off alarm bells. Or at least a more thorough search before he climbed into seat 19A aboard Flight...