Ought

In the movie Shawshank Redemption, Brooks Hadlyn, played by James Whitmore, answers the question, ‘What year did you come to Shawshank?’ 

‘That would be ought six.’

He was saying the year 1906, using the word ‘ought’ as zero, as in the commonly used, 'oh six'.

In shotgun shoptalk people use the expression ‘ought’ to describe the size of shot. British spies, are sometimes called double ought spies, like 007.  Ought used to be an acceptable/popular form of zero.

We as a people; that is, almost the entire planet, more specifically, everybody who uses the Roman Calendar with year one coinciding near the birth of Jesus and who today recognize this current cycle of the earth around the sun as 2009, which is the vast majority of the modern world — WE have only a few short months until it will be 2010. The ought years are almost over. And they will be gone for another hundred years.

We had the opportunity to live through them. We will never see them again.  Our children probably won't either. 
Ought Years, that is.

In the last 9 years; that is, 2001 to the present, October 31^st 2009, Halloween in some circles. In that time, I’ve never once heard anyone refer to recent years as ought three or ought seven, as in the sentences, ‘I was graduated from University in ought 3' or ‘I divorced my wife in ought seven’.

I, for one, believe that the ought numERICal should be re-introduced into the English vocabulary cuz it sounds so cool. Think about it. When speaking of this current year, simply compare ‘two thousand nine’ and ‘ought nine.’ 
There’s really no comparon. 

Plus, the ought years are coming to close.

For the duration of the year, we should all try to use the ‘ought’ numerical expression every time we refer to a year in this soon to end decade. We as a people really OUGHT to bring back the expression OUGHT; that is, use it in everyday speech when talking about the decade that is now ending.

Oh yeah. That’s it.

I was reading a magazine the other day and there was a bit about Best Album of the Last Decade. I don’t remember who was in the running cuz I don’t know by name much modern music, but what blew my mind was that the decade is coming to an end.

In three months.  15, if you want to be technical.  Still, the ought years, which occur for only nine years each century -- they are ending shortly.

We ought to do something memorable. Let’s bring back the word ought as the word zero.