what's up with the "september THE 11th" crap?

[unblock]

---------
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html

"On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country."
---------


the banana republicans still use the "september THE 11th" construction occassionally. what's up with that?

was pearl harbor day december THE 7th?
is christmas december THE 25th?
they talk like that in the uk, but not on this side of the pond.

no, but POPES are:

pope john paul THE 2nd
pope benedict THE 16th

and of course, kings are:

king george THE 3rd



it's all part of trying to make 9/11 sound royal, regal, to put it on a pedestal and exhalt its glory.

well, considering if 9/11 hadn't happened, shrubbie would have been TOAST, i guess i can't blame them....

[NMDemDist2]

1. i can handle that better than the "Nine-One-One" bit n/t

[unblock]

2. as a former emt, i have to agree with you on that one

9-1-1 is for emergency calls, but of course, creating confusions for ordinary people in emergency situations is a small price to pay for partisan political gain....

[ClassWarrior]

3. But the nine-one-one bit or the nine-eleven bit suggests...

...a horrific emergency. Better framing in my opinion.

NGU.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

12. WHY DO THEY STILL HATE AMERICA?

Frankly, I'm weary of the September 11 stuff being thrown up over and over like an eternal furball.

Yes, we all know what happened: crazed fundamentalists, almost all of them Saudi nationals, grabbed planes and caused massive destruction and thousands of deaths.

Yeah, well, we have to deal with those crazed fundamentalists, right?

So, sure - go ahead and invade Iraq. That sure gets the job done.

WHY DOES RATFACE BUSH HATE AMERICA?

[ET Awful]

4. I think in this case you're reading too much into it.

It's a regional phrasing is all. My grandmother, who is from Oklahoma, always used "the" in dates of some kinds and not of others. A birth was "oh so and so was born on August the 12th." On any important anniversary, the "the" was there, any other date it wasn't.

It's just a regional dialect type thing much like "soda" "soft drink" and "coke."

[unblock]

7. i lived in texas for 7 years and never heard this usage

of course, if you ask people from either oklahoma OR texas, they're in different regions. texas is, after all, a whole nuther country.

but even if it is a regionalism, it seems that the point of the regionalism is as i indicated, to elevate the significance by using a more elaborate construction, that evokes such things as popes and kings.

[AntiCoup2K4]

9. But Junior isn't really a Texan. Nor is his daddy.

They just pretend to be, while directing their party to bash "New England preppies" like Dean & Kerry.

[Internut]

13. How do you define a "Texan"?

GWB lived in Texas from age 2 to 15, then in New England from 15 to 22. Then he stayed in Texas for 4 years during his TANG service. Back to Harvard for 2 years - until 1975. From then until now he has been a Texas resident - Midland, Dallas, Houston, Austin.

If you count only the 54 years from 1946 to 2000, he spent 11 years in New England and 43 years in Texas. I think that makes him a Texan.

[eShirl]

5. it has the rythm of "Friday THE 13th" but otherwise makes no sense.

It *would* make sense if they were saying "Tuesday THE 11th day OF September." I think they are just trying to be dumb/folksy on purpose.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

6. Goddamnit!

It's all changed! Don't you understand?

:patriot:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

11. WHY DO THEY HATE AMERICA?

JUST TELL ME THAT!

WHY?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

16. Commie, pinko, red bastards! That's why!

What's happening to Norman Rockwell's America? :cry:

:patriot:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

17. THAT'S RIGHT!

The one with Mommy drugged and drinking, fixing dinner, crying, wondering when Daddy was coming home - or if he was coming home because her allowance for the week ran out and she has no way of making any money on her own.

The one with kids afraid to tell their parents - who couldn't care less - about what's happening to them over at the Church on those nights with Father Fill-In-The-Blanks, the one who likes to come to dinner and drink with Daddy afterwards?

The one with girls getting those nifty metal-coat-hanger abortions, because, dammit, those tramps were just asking for it.

The good old days when the ones who didn't have nice pink skin knew their places, dammit.

COMMIE BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

18. Gettin' busted for smoking corn silk.

Not having an abortion but going away to Aunt Sylvie's place.

Goin' to work where dad did... because we're a loyal family, damnit!

Father Fill-In-The-Blanks is a pain in the ass to all the young boys....oh, you got that one.

:patriot:

[Henny Penny]

8. We use the "the" in all our dates, important or not.

It sounds very odd to us to say June 12th, or May 20th. To us it is always the 12th of June.

So nothing to do with sounding regal, to us anyways. But I can see where it might sound a bit pretentious to US ears.

[unblock]

19. no, there's a difference

-september 11th -- standard
-the 11th of september -- a bit more formal, but still common usage, especially in written english (less so in spoken english)

-september the 11th -- not standard american usage at all (with the possible exception of some regionalisms as mentioned in another post in this thread.

[Henny Penny]

21. Sorry Unblock, I should have specified who I meant by "we"...

and I meant Irish or British people. September the 11th is standard usage for us.

But I would agree, not standard for you.

[unblock]

22. your avatar was a big clue...

and mrs. unblock is half british, so i'm familiar with many uk linguistic constructions.

still, there's a difference in word order, "the 11th of september" vs. "september the 11th"....

:hi:

[Adelante]

29. Sorry

I've said "September the 11th" about a million times and so have other members of my family. I agree it's not standard usage today, but not that long ago it certainly was. It's old fashioned, I guess, but not entirely out of use.

I don't mean to be insulting, but I am wondering about the age range of people who believe this usage is something extraordinary and those that don't. Maybe that's the difference, maybe not. I was born and raised in New York City, by the way, so the regionalism argument is not that sound, either.

[Igel]

30. Actually, I realize I have no idea what's standard.

Here are my acceptability judgments, off the cuff. Grammaticality in English is determined by usage, not authority. My wife's judgements are in (), but she's not been asked about contexts and appropriateness.

September 11, 2001 sounds fine to me as "eleven". But it's a date, not a day, and might sound a bit official. (OK.)
September 11th, 2001 doesn't sound too bad to me. Maybe a bit high-style. (better)
September the 11th, 2001 doesn't sound great, but I wouldn't think twice if I heard it; I think I'm unlikely ever to say it. (ok)
September 11 sounds relatively bad to me unless a year's implied by the context, preferably having been given in the verbal context. (ok)
September 11th also does sounds reasonably good to me, if a year's implied. (ok)
September the 11th sounds fine to me. It implies a year, the year doesn't have to be implied by the context. (ok)
911 I want to class as a strange sort of acronym.

Article syntax in English is a bear, I've never seen a grammar that accounted for most of the distinct situations "the" versus "a" are used in. Enc analyzed "the" as meaning either specificity or definiteness, or both. I rather liked his analysis.

I suspect that we have specificity involved with "the", but also a matter of style. Maybe it's fractured regionally, but that's a tough call without actually looking at gobs of data. But I haven't seen this addressed in the ling literature (and haven't done a lit search); might be an interesting project.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

10. I am heretofore to be referred to as:

OldLeftieTheLawyer.

You may be seated.

[Henny Penny]

14. You must be from "Old Europe"...

oldleftie THE lawyer!
lol
:toast:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

15. Thank you, thank you

Yes, I'm quite the ancient aristocrat, come to think of it.

OLTL

Bless you, child ........................

[Karenina]

20. Language MATTERS...

DOWNING STREET MINUTES - OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT MINUTES OF AN OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT MEETING

[Vickers]

23. Abu Ghraib, the torture...TANG, the AWOL years

Iraqi War, the lies to get us there

Fox News, the Geraldo Rivera network

Social Security, the thing they want to take from you
.
.
.

I dunno, I can use "the" as well as those dumbasses. :eyes:

[Adelante]

24. Nonsense

It's an ordinary construction used all over the country, although not as much currently. I grew up in New York City and it was one of a few ways a date was phrased. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[demwing]

25. Think "4th of July"

with a negative spin, that's all.

[unblock]

32. i've never heard anyone refer to it as "july the fourth"

"the fourth of july", yes, of course.
but "july the fourth", no.

[MsTryska]

26. he can't speak english.nt

nt

[elehhhhna]

27. Short for "Sept. THE 11th, in the year of our Lord 2001"

[elehhhhna]

28. They backed off "nine one one" cuz' it sounds so obvious that they

picked the date.

[demokatgurrl]

31. Funny, I'm just the opposite- I say September the 11th or

September 11th. I HATE, HATE "NINE ELEVEN". Do you say "June seven"? "February three"? Saying it "nine eleven" makes it sound almost like a holiday which, for me at least, it's not. Nothing to celebrate about our country being left wide open for attack by a sleeping president and a numb national security advisor.
September the 11th, the day after September the 10th, it will always be to me.