I agree -- the more important thing to note here is the improper use of the apostrophe (yet again). You don't mean "80 is," and nothing belongs to 80. You are talking about a number of years. Years --> plural. Therefore, 80s is the proper way to say it, regardless of what the Times uses.

The same thing goes for CD's. That's wrong. Compact Discs CDs.

The poor apostrophe....people use it so often and without regard to its proper usage, it might as well be deemed the punctuation whore.

With each "Drive thru" and "OutKast" we have, the further English falls into the toilet. Why do people think it's cool to misspell things? Do they know it makes them look like an idiot?

(I don't mean that to you, goossun.)

cuz what would u think if i type'd everything like this?

Oral should be pronounced as the first two letters dictate - "or," as in the sentence "trick OR treat."

The "au" in aural sounds like "are," as in the sentence "we ARE dead meat."

People like to use a dipthong (the sound two or more vowels make when pronounced together - the "oi" in "poison") when pronouncing "aural," resulting in something sounding like "oooaaarull." People from NY tend to speak like that (myself being from NY). This blending of pronunciations creates confusion between the two words.

Look at it this way - you don't drive an ooaaatomobile. You drive an automobile. Similarly, you can go nORth, not nAUth.