If Americans usually put the month before the day, then why do they say the 4th of July instead of July 4th?

36 comments

1. Because we’re inconsistent.

2. It’s said both ways, but the 4th of July sounds better.

3. Listen Jack, I ain’t here to make sense.

4. Cause we do.

5. Because when people say, “4th of July” it’s moreso the name of the holiday than it is the date the holiday is on. Rarely will you hear people call it “Independence Day” as the holiday name they’ll just say “4th of July” and everyone knows what you mean; it’s specifically because of the fact that we don’t typically say dates in that way that it works.

   You don’t see the same thing for other holidays because they have official names: Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc.

6. The best logic I’ve ever been able to come up with is that saying “March 3rd” is faster, particularly when writing. By saying “The Fourth of July,” it’s intentionally taking the long way about it, making it more reverent. There’s more pomp and circumstance to saying it the long way.

   This entire argument goes out the window with “September 11th” and “January 6th.”

7. Do you mean the holiday we celebrate in memory of 1776-07-04, the only correct dating format?

8. 4th of July adds emphasis to the date, because it’s important.

   June 26th, however, is just another day on the calendar.

9. [deleted]

10. “Fourth of July” isn’t just a way to say that date, it’s a holiday’s (unofficial) name. it sounds a bit fancy and extra special that way.

    when writing the date, we write it MM/DD/YY or [month] [day], [year], so it makes more sense to us to say normal dates like “July 10th.” it would sound silly to say common dates in the ~ fancy ~ way.

11. We say it both ways, but “4th of July” is kind of the name of the holiday instead of us simply stating the date. Like saying Christmas instead of December 25th.

12. ‘The Fourth of July’ is the name of the holiday. When talking about the date, its usually called July 4th. You will see commercials say ‘This fourth of july weekend, come in and get _________’ and then at the end they usually have a disclaimer like ‘Offer only good until July 4th’

13. Not everything has an explanation.

14. We do use the day-month-year format a lot in colloquial speech, it’s just not what’s written. It’s not a different language.

15. It’s said both ways, but generally, in this case, it’s because it’s a holiday

16. We like to party

17. The fourth of July is a holiday, July 4th is a date. When America was founded the UK used the same format of month/day/year, then the UK changed the format to match the rest of Europe and the US did not.

18. Formal vs informal. In a casual conversation we’d use M/D/Y as it rolls off the tongue better, whereas D/M/Y sounds more official.

19. We use both. For example if a movie debuts on the holiday, the preview says “On July 4th” or when something happens on the date itself.  I’m told the 4th of July is an older form of calendar dating?

     Independence Day is mainly used in official usage such as “The Post Office is closed for Independence Day.” My private company calls it Independence Day too but when spoken its always July 4th or  “the” (article usage) 4th of July / The 4th (although its not uncommon to use the latter for other dates of the year). 

     When speaking of other Independence days, the country is used, such as “Mexican Independence Day” in September which is celebrated as well those of Mexican ancestry. 

20. Saying the “4th of July” is using an archaism.

21. I much prefer dd/mm/yyyy but alas, I grew up in and on the mm/dd/yyyy system and people get confused if I don’t use that system.

22. Same reason we’d say “October 31st” instead of “The 31st of October”. It’s all arbitrary and not worth getting worked up over.

23. “Usually” isn’t “always”. And saying it a different way emphasizes that it is special.

24. Because “Fourth of July” isn’t a date, it is the name of a holiday. 

    And we generally avoid adding a bunch of “of”s and “of the”s that you see a lot in Romance languages. 

25. You’re wrong.

26. Around here most call it July fourth. Fourth of July is sometimes used because that is how they would have said it back when our country was founded.

27. We say it that way to make it stand out. It’s a special day.

28. Because the *day* of *the month* is usually used when it is a more formal event. My parents wedding invitations, for example, said “The Third of December” and not “December Third”.

29. Because The Fourth of July” (Independence Day) occurs on July 4th

30. We say it both ways. We just use the mm/dd/yyyy format for writing it.

31. It’s the name of a holiday.

32. It’s 4th of July, true. But it’s July 4th if ya nasty.

33. Sometimes things are different for no good reason and won’t change just because you think it would make sense to change.

34. I’m generalizing a lot here but mostly Americans speak dates the same way we write them. April 10th, August 22nd, December 1st, etc. There are exceptions though and the 4th of July is one of them. Really it’s more the name of the holiday anyway than it is us saying the date.

35. We also have a holiday called “Cinco de Mayo” and no one questions why we don’t say the rest of the dates in the Spanish language.

36. that doesnt even make sense, Americans do MM/DD/YYYY in written form but dont actually SAY it out loud bc it sounds weird