March 7 (the)

[Rachel Adams]

Hello.

Do you pronounce March 7 as March seventh or March the seventh in British English?

 

[Rachel Adams]

Should it be pronounced as written? For example March 7= March the seventh, and 7 March as the seventh of March?

 

[emsr2d2]

Should it be spoken the way it's written? Probably.
Do we always do that? No.

 

[Rover_KE]

There are many ways of saying and writing the date. We are not always consistent ourselves.

 

[Rachel Adams]

Even March seven, or seven March, on March seven and on seven March are possible?

 

[Rover_KE]

Yes – some people say it like that.

 

[jutfrank]

Do people really say seven March? I've never heard that.

 

[Rover_KE]

Do people really say seven March? I've never heard that.

Yes. I've heard it.

 

[jutfrank]

Yes. I've heard it.

Would you associate it (even very loosely) with any particular variety, speaker group, or register?

 

[GoesStation]

Would you associate it (even very loosely) with any particular variety, speaker group, or register?

This Wikipedia article says, without a citation, that the "seven March two-thousand nineteen" form is used in the American military.

 

[Tarheel]

I would say:

March seventh

 

[Rover_KE]

Rachel, your original question asked about dates in British English. The post above from Tarheel (an American-English speaker) draws attention to the only significant difference between BE and AE* regarding saying/writing dates.

BE speakers are more likely to put the number first, whilst AE speakers usually put the month first. (It came as a big surprise to me that the American military(!)—an enormous body of AE speakers—doesn't, if Wikipedia is to be believed.)

It's only important to know this when you see dates written numerically: 04/12/17.

In BE, this normally means 4(th) December, 2017, and in AE April 12(th), 2017, so if there's any chance of confusion it's essential to write the month as a word.


* Speakers of other variants of English are welcome to give us their own perspective.

 

[GoesStation]

It's only important to know this when you see dates written numerically: 04/12/17.

In BE, this normally means 4(th) December, 2017, and in AE April 12(th), 2017, so if there's any chance of confusion it's essential to write the month as a word.

When I moved to Canada in the mid Seventies, I was delighted to discover that the Canadians used both systems.

 

[GoesStation]

(It came as a big surprise to me that the American military(!)—an enormous body of AE speakers—doesn't, if Wikipedia is to be believed.)

I looked it up because I was pretty sure the American military used that convention. They also use the 24-hour clock (which Americans consequently call "military time"), but that habit has never leaked over into civilian practice.

 

[Phaedrus]

I would say:

March seventh

The addition of the the is a rarity in American English. Does anyone know what the the adds grammatically when present (March the seventh)?

As best I can tell, for none of my books analyzes it, proper names qualified by an ordinal numeral (always?) used to take it in post-position with the.

Is it some kind of appositive contained within a proper noun?

 

[bubbha]

The US military uses 24-hour time and the metric system, so it shouldn't be surprising that the US military puts the day before the month.

 

[Phaedrus]

Does anyone know what the the adds grammatically when present (March the seventh)?

The grammar of March the seventh does not seem to me precisely analogous to Elizabeth the second, insofar as we could refer to the second Queen Elizabeth, but it would be ludicrous to refer to [strike]the seventh March[/strike]. That said, it has occurred to me that those of us who speak American English do use the without fail in phrases like Friday the thirteenth, Monday the seventh, Saturday the fifth, etc., and that it would be ungrammatical (even to us) to say [strike]Friday thirteenth[/strike], [strike]Monday seventh[/strike], [strike]Saturday fifth[/strike], etc. My present theory/hypothesis is that phrases like March the seventh (as well as Friday the thirteenth, etc.) contain apposition like that found in Winston the hatter, John the baptist, etc. The ordinal numeral in the appositive specifies a position in a series, and for that use the is grammatically needed. Over time, however, Americans (or at least 99.9% of them) saw fit to dispense with the the, having come to experience names like March the seventh without the concept of a series (or without an explicit concept thereof), such that we could simply name the day March seventh.

Thoughts?

 

[jutfrank]

Thoughts?

I see it as simply as a short way of saying the Xth (day).

Friday the thirteenth (of March) is a short way of saying Friday, the thirteenth (day) (of March).

The word day has been dropped over time, as it's non-essential to the meaning. The article the is grammatically necessary, of course.

Similarly, March the thirteenth is a shortened from of March, the thirteenth day.

As you say, over time, American usage has dropped the the, for economy's sake, despite it being grammatically required.

 

[jutfrank]

By the way, I think we can all agree how ridiculous it is that a written date such as 12/06/19 can be interpreted (or misinterpreted!) as both the twelfth of June and the sixth of December. I wonder how much confusion this conflict of convention causes worldwide every day.

So since it is much more logical to start with the smallest unit first (i.e. DD/MM/YY), I have decided that from now on everybody is going to follow this code. I would appreciate it if our American members could let everybody on that side know. Thanks.

 

[GoesStation]

I'll get right on it.