[General] 'by the mid-aughts'

[Olympian]

Hello,

I am not able to understand the meaning of 'mid-aughts' below. I checked the dictionary, but the meaning is given as 'ought' or 'nothing, zero'. That does not seem to fit here.

The following is from an article in The New Yorker about Wall Street Crime, called 'A Dirty Business' .

At Galleon’s daily 8:30 A.M. meeting, he always had more information than his employees and didn’t hesitate to let them know it. By the mid-aughts, hedge funds accounted for nearly half of all stock trades, and there was ferocious competition for wealthy investors and the business of investment banks.

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Thank you

 

[konungursvia]

Aught is a short form for naught, or zero. It was frequently used in 1900-1909 in the US to refer to that decade; some Americans may be using it for the previous decade (of this century) as well. I've only heard older people use it.

 

[Olympian]

@konungursvia, thank you. That makes sense. The article is about the scam these people ran perhaps from 200?-2009. I now understand, Like we say 'the 60's' or 'the 70's', this is 'the oughts'.

I wonder how younger people would refer to this time.

Thank you.

 

[BobK]

:up:... or 'the noughties'. Maybe this is strictly a Br Eng thing; I've never heard of 'the mid-aughts'. In fact at first I thought it was a typo.

b