Twenty thirty

I don't know if it all started with the "agenda twenty thirty" of the UN, that is, the "agenda two thousand thirty" that would have been said before.

Since in English it reads

twenty thirty,

the usual vulgarity of some Spaniards with a microphone is already resulting in the copy.

Now the custom of pronouncing the years as if they were two separate figures is spreading in public language: “We leave this for the twenty-twenty-five budget.”

This way we feel more international, more from the first-first world, we try to make the unwary see us as professionals trained abroad who handle ways that are not the ones here.

When I hear on the radio that someone announces “our profit horizon is the year twenty-twenty-six,” I already know that he is an imposter.

And also that he therefore will not enter into benefits in the year twenty twenty-six.

They pronounce it that way, as if they were the measurements of a bookshelf, the width and height of a refrigerator, or the sidelines and backlines of a soccer field, all cases where the formulation refers to two different lengths and not to a single measurement property.

The fashion has taken root among consultants, among business school professors, among politicians who appear enlightened, and also among journalists who try to resemble all of them at the same time.

But I haven't heard it in the supermarket, nor in the bar, nor did anyone wish me on New Year's Eve “happy twenty twenty-four!”

This year you can say in English

two thousand and twenty-four

and also

twenty twenty-four.

That is, the Anglo-Saxons have the equivalent possibilities of “two thousand and twenty-four” and “twenty twenty-four”, although the American variety eliminates the conjunction

and

(and).

Now, this double denomination is recent, because the mentions of the years prior to 2000 are only pronounced with the two figures separated;

1997:

nineteen ninety-seven

(nineteen ninety-seven) and not

one thousand nine-hundred and ninety-seven

(one thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven).

However, there are some exceptions, such as 1900, whose enunciation would be equivalent to saying “nineteen hundred” (and not “nineteen zero zero”).

In English it made sense to consolidate the short option for the years.

Between

nineteen ninety-seven

and its alternative

one thousand nine-hundred and ninety-seven,

it is worth choosing the one because it is less cumbersome.

But in Spanish you don't gain anything with “twenty thirty” versus “two thousand thirty.”

And yet, there it goes.

In this imitation the same thing happens to us as with the

ampersand

sign (&.), invented in the 1st century BC by the stenographer of Cicero's speeches to abbreviate the ubiquitous Latin conjunction

et in a single stroke.

In the English language it was used as a reduction of

and,

but in Spanish it disappeared because such a sign required greater calligraphic effort than the simple conjunction “and”, its equivalent.

However, now we see it everywhere in Spanish brands and companies as a sign of our complex modernity.

The 2030 Agenda includes sustainable development goals for the planet.

Perfect.

I hope they are achieved.

But sustainable development begins in Spanish with a statement that is difficult to sustain.

Maybe it will go out of style soon and won't even make it to the year twenty twenty-seven.

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