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This was credited to ABC:"As the nation marks the one-month anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon , "
An "anniversary" of thirty days is absurd, but how should it have been written?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dr. Bill, with all the trouble I'm having trying to think up even one better alternative, I'm willing to let them say one-month anniversary. Commemoration certainly isn't right. Neither is memorial. "The nation notes that it's the same date of the next month"? Har. One-month anniversary is ok with me, so far.
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veteran
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While it is true that the word anniversary is rooted in the Latin word for "year", there isn't a word that I know of to denote an occasion marking a lesser period. I guess in former times people only noted a Jahreszeit, although we do have centennials, and fractions and multiples of centennials. Since no one is going to talk about a menseversary, or a bihebdoversary etc., I guess we'll just have to go on using anniversary as an all-purpose word with suitable modifiers for the time span.
Postscript Egad, Faldage got in mensiversary while I was writing the above.
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Carpal Tunnel
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>"As the nation marks the one-month anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon ," An "anniversary" of thirty days is absurd, but how should it have been written? ----------------------
I have spent two days fuming about this myself, and was going to start a thread on it today because it irks me so. People know what they mean when they say "one-month anniversary", but it is till wrong wrong wrong. With emphasis on wrong.
Alternatives for the language purists:
"As the nation marks the passing of one month since the attacks . . .."
"It has now been a full month since the attacks . . .."
"The world pauses today to reflect on the month that has gone by since the attacks . . .."
-------------
It is now the one-hour anniversary since my last sip of coffee. BRB
TdE
TEd
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A book of poetry about people who brag about their IQs.
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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First mensiversary. "Mensi" relating (I presume) to that which roughly matches the lunar cycle, and the concept being lunatic, perhaps one could coin "first lunaversary".
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old hand
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old hand
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On the original question....seems to me that there is an element of celebration implied in the word anniversay. Is this true?
If so, it's an inappropriate and ineffectual word if used to mark the darker points of history. Guess it all comes down to the original meaning of the word that gives us the "versary" part. Over to you scholarly types.
stales
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L. anniversari-us returning yearly, f. ann-us year + vers-us turned, a turning
in the sense of a celebration of an anniversary there is an attributive use of the noun.
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In checking dictionary to see if Faldage's contribution appeared in it,(alas, it did not) I found a word I never saw before: menology: a calendar of the months, with their events
I've been using them for years, and never knew it.
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