Decades-long ? decade-long ?

Question

Hi, everyone.Which expression is correct? Decades-long ? decade-long ?and, year-long, years-long..?Thanks in advance.!

Yankee · Accepted Answer

Hi Lee2bong,

Welcome to English Forums.

Decades-long could be used as an adjective to describe something that lasted for several or many decades.
Decade-long can be used as an adjective to describe something that lasted for approximately one decade.
Year-long can be used as an adjective to describe something that lasted for approximately one year.

I doubt that I would use "years-long", though. That one strikes me as odd.

RayH · Answer

YankeeI doubt that I would use "years-long", though. That one strikes me as odd.

Interesting. "years-long" sounds perfectly fine to my ear.

Yankee · Answer

I'm not quite sure why it struck me as odd -- it just did.

Maybe it tends to be used less often than "decades-long".

Anonymous · Answer

The Associated Press Stylebook (2007) lists daylong (p. 69), weeklong (p. 268) and yearlong (p. 274) but not decadelong. It does look strange to me. The hyphen in decade-long seems to make sense, so decades-long also may make sense.

As for the 10 years in any decade, starting with 0 does not make sense because there was no year 0 — people living 2,009 and 2,010 years ago didn't look at the year(s) that way, especially the Romans, the Jews and the Chinese. When children count to 10, they don't start with 0; they start with 1, by definition the "first" year or the "first" number.

Thus, the 20th century was the 100 years between 1901 and 2000, and the celebrations of the "new millennium" (1,000 years) on Jan, 1, 2000, was a year early. The 21st century includes the years 2001 to 2100. However, the "decade of the 1970s" logically would include the 10 years from 1970 to 1979, and not 1980.

As I recall 2000, logic had nothing to do with the celebrations of the "new millennium."

Decades-long ? decade-long ?

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions