Trend-setter Charles Osgood goes all futuristic on this century

It's funny that I heard it on CBS Sunday Morning, an admittedly semi-geriatric television program (if that's what they're still calling them these days), not just because of Charles Osgood's stately tweed and bow tie ensembles, or the last 5 minutes of wildlife footage that's shamelessly lampooned for the Daily Show's "Moment of Zen," but really, the sole fact that the show starts at 9 a.m. on Sunday mornings means it surely goes unwatched by the late slumbering 18-25 age group I fall into.

Alas...

It's on this old people's human-interest news hour-and-a-half that I've heard the consistent (two weeks in a row, and counting) use of "twenty oh -" instead of the old "two thousand and -". Now, granted, I'm not watching much TV these days, so perhaps there are other influential newscasters with similar semantic tendencies, but I do have to say, it's a bold move. Predictive, I must assume, of how my generation's children's children's children will go about saying their year in the 22nd century. "Two thousand, one hundred and eight" is way more of a mouthful I can handle. So props, Sunday Morning, for being so forward thinking. Now that our senior citizens are saying it this way, maybe the trend will trickle down.

By the way, if you were wondering (as I was), the border collie Lucy Lou ("The Bitch You Can Count On") won the canine mayoral election in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky on Tuesday. Bill Geist ran the segment last Sunday. This week, he reported on the New York Citywide Bocce Competition.