4 ms·
What about the Fourth of July then?
by rags2riches 7y ago
What about the Fourth of July then?
- thaumasiotes 7y agoWhat about it? It's the name of a holiday. 12/25 is often called Christmas, and yet 9/29 is never called Michaelmas. Same thing.
- stevekemp 7y agoThe parent was making the point that generally Americans refer to dates such as "May 2nd", "April 14th". But one of their biggest holidays is explicitly called "4th of July", changing the ordering.
- thaumasiotes 7y agoAnd a proper name is not good evidence of normal usage. "Christmas" is normal use in an older, Catholic method of identifying calendar dates. Americans don't use that method; most couldn't if they wanted to. But Christmas itself is still identified that way for historical reasons -- the word has gone from being an example of talking about the calendar to being an example of a proper name. "4th of July" is not a method that Americans couldn't use if they wanted to, but it is an ossified usage that doesn't reflect how Americans generally refer to dates. Like Christmas, it is a proper name of limited evidentiary value.
- Kaiyou 7y agoHuh, where I'm from the 24th of December is Christmas. The 25th is the day after Christmas.
- loco5niner 7y agoReally? Where are you from? This might help explain how Santa delivers all those presents in "one night".
- Kaiyou 7y agoPossibly it's the difference between being an atheist and a catholic, since I faintly remember my catholic friends receiving presents on the morning of the 25th, while I would receive them on the evening of the 24th.
- loco5niner 7y agoInteresting. Are you from Canada?
- Kaiyou 7y agoI'm from Europe, but not from an English speaking country.
- thaumasiotes 7y agoOpening presents on Christmas Eve is a pretty common tradition. Calling Christmas Eve "Christmas" is not common at all.
- Lio 7y agoI don’t know, I always imagined that you said “4th of July” because up to that point you were Brits and that’s how we say it. ...and then the very next day, without adult supervision, you started saying your dates weirdly and dropping the “u”s out of words, stuff like that.* * DISCLAIMER: May not be an accurate representation of history. :P
- thaumasiotes 7y agoIt's more accurate than it might sound. If I recall correctly, the American spelling reforms were largely a one-man top-down effort driven by the ideological goal of being more separate from Britain.
- justinclift 7y agoIt's commonly referred to as "Simplified English" for good reason. ;)
- dcuthbertson 7y ago> I always imagined that you said “4th of July” because up to that point you were Brits True, but nowadays we say "Independence Day" :-)
- iso947 7y agoMacy’s call it 4th of July https://www.macys.com/shop/4th-of-july-sale https://www.macys.com/shop/4th-of-july-sale
- umanwizard 7y agoYou can say any date like that in American English, it’s just less common. “Today is the second of February” sounds perfectly natural, but I’d be more likely to say “Today is February second”.
- loco5niner 7y agoAs in everything else in American English, there are exceptions.