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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Suddenly, it’s ubiquitous.
The rapidly growing use of ordinals in dates is an incorrect hyper-correction by people who think they are improving on what they learned in school (or maybe they were absent that day).
A written date is incorrect when used with ordinals, i.e., it is December 7, 1941, not December 7th, 1941, or even December 7th.
Ordinals are only used to express order or succession. Dates are understood to be read with the ordinal pronounced.
“Come to our big sale on July 3rd, 4th, and 5th.†It is correct simply as July 3, 4, and 5.
I believe the confusion begins with written terms such as the “Fourth of July, or “4th of July,†commonly used in advertising copy. While it may have certain eye appeal or even descriptive value in such applications, such usage carries over to the public and before long people start writing “May 5th Celebration†instead of simply May 5. Labor Day becomes September 6th instead of just September 6.
Let’s put an end to this nonsense before it spreads any further, even to the 2nd generation.
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Since this topic has nothing to do with eggcorns, the “Slips, etc.” page of the Forum would be a more appropriate place for it.
That said, there’s nothing new about the use of ordinals with dates. I went to books.google.com, and requested books and pamphlets published between 1800 and 1900 that included the phrase “July 7th”—I got 2240 hits, many of them from the middle of the century. This usage was well established 150 years ago in edited publications.
Is it still acceptable in such publications today? I decided to see how a publisher with a solid reputation for high editorial standards dealt with the issue, so I asked books.google.com to bring up the phrase “December 7th” in books published by Oxford University Press. There were 12 hits; most were from books published within the last ten years, but the earliest citation was from 1918. Among more recent books employing “December 7th” is the authoritative Oxford edition of the poems of Emily Bronte.
You can repeat this exercise with many different dates, publishers, etc. The use of ordinals in dates is now clearly standard usage in formal written English.
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It is my understanding that in BrE+ (meaning, including other varieties of English that, though not from the British Isles, are closer to BrE than to AmE) the form with the ordinals is still often preferred, or at least admitted: December 7th or the 7th of December—BrE; December 7 or 7 December—AmE. This isn’t strictly true, but the ordinal date form is still routinely taught in EFL classes. Though it looks wrong to some AmE speakers, it can’t be called flat-out wrong.
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Chris, you’re absolutely right in implying that I should have considered the British/American split when I decided to use Oxford as my principal source of evidence. But I can’t find a lot of support for the idea that the official gatekeepers of British style favor ordinals more than their American counterparts. My googling results make me suspect that the American person-on-the-street is actually more partial to ordinals than regular Joes and Janes in Britain. And I think that’s why some Americans complain about them more—they’re seeing them more frequently.
Most American usage guides—like most British style sheets—don’t say much about this; they just don’t list ordinals as an option. If I remember correctly, the Chicago Manual of Style does proscribe the use of ordinals, but its example is a full date.
I do have at least one powerful American ally. Here’s what Merriam-Webster’s Guide to Punctuation and Style (2nd ed., 2001) has to say on the issue:
Ordinal numbers are not used in full dates. Ordinals are sometimes used, however, for a date without an accompanying year, and they are always used when preceded in a date by the word the. [Examples:]
December 4, 1829
on December 4th or on December 4
on the 4th of December
(page 145)
MWGPS doesn’t list “4 December” as an option. Some Americans do use that form, but it’s clearly our 3rd choice.
Nope, ordinals aren’t flat-out wrong; they’re a standard option, and in certain situations they’re required.
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