2010 is a significant date

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masterding

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Quote from VOA News:
"2010 is a significant date in the world's fight against global hunger: it marks 30 years since the first World Food Day and 65 years since the founding of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization. "
here's the link : Hunger in Focus: On 30th World Food Day, 925 Million Still Hungry | News | English
My question is why 2010 is a date not a year?how to understand it?


Thanks!
 
We say 'Henry VIII's dates were 1491-1547', so a year is a date.

Rover
 
Maybe it's BrE, but calling a year a date doesn't sound particularly strange to me - we do use it for kings and queens etc - though I think 2010 is simply an anniversary of these things so I can't see a good reason to use it here.
 
I wonder if the writer used year at first and later edited it to date to avoid excessive repetition after realising he wanted to use 'years' twice more in the same sentence.

Rover
 
It sounds strange to me, calling a year a date.
Would it be impossible for an Autralian kid to say, "I hate learning history. All these dates are killing me!"? (Is this kind of punctuation acceptable in English?)

Of course when it comes to modern history, those "dates" would be particular days, but let's say the kid has to learn the medieval history at the moment.
 
"I hate learning history. All these dates are killing me!"

That sounds fine to me, BC, and it's correctly punctuated.

Rover
 
Last edited:
Would it be impossible for an Autralian kid to say, "I hate learning history. All these dates are killing me!"? (Is this kind of punctuation acceptable in English?)
No, because that's a traditional use of "dates".

Of course when it comes to modern history, those "dates" would be particular days, but let's say the kid has to learn the medieval history at the moment.
Why "of course"? Isn't that what is in contention?
I've never heard "Henry VIII's dates were 1491-1547"
I was taught that Henry's dates were: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Kathryn Howard and Katherine Parr. No doubt he had others! :)
 
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