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stranger
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If we celebrated the US Bicentennial on July 4, 1979 and will be celebrating, just for example, the California Sesquicentennial on September 9, 2000, what will we be celebrating on July 4, 2029? The Sesquibicentennial? None of my dictionaries are looking that far ahead. I note that "sesquicentennial" is considered an Americanism. Have our British cousins never celebrated the 150th anniversary of anything? I also note that AWAD does not have the word in its database.
Excellency will do.
Excellency will do.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The case could probably be made that only in America do we concern ourselves with celebrating this kind of stuff (and then we can't decide whether to start with year zero or year one!) -- anyway, since we don't have anything that's 250 years old yet, let me be the first to coin the word semiquincentennial (I like that a bit better than quinsemicentennial.) EDITED NOTE: I, of all people, should know better than to assume that any idea is new: http://www.sls.lib.il.us/reference/por/features/97/anniverl.html
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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We only bother with millennia (and even then we can't decide when to start).
Stonehenge dates back to -2800 so I suppose we could celebrate something in 2200 but I'm not sure what it would be called and I'm not sure how we would choose exactly the right day for the party.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Welcome, rmatheron!
Sesquicentennial is the only term I've heard for a 150-yr.
span.
Um--I rather thought we had our Bicentennial in 1976,
and France's, for Bastille Day, was 1979.
Allons, enfants de la patrie,
le jour de gloire est arrivee... Oops, wrong anthem
for this country!
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addict
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> Um--I rather thought we had our Bicentennial in 1976,
and France's, for Bastille Day, was 1979.
Yet another faux pas. Merdre! The storming of the Bastille took place on July 14th 1789 and immediately preceded the French Revolution. In 1889, to commemorate the centenary, Paris held the world Exposition and built a number of 'temporary' structures on the Champ de Mars of which only the Eiffel tower survives. A double celebration was held in 1989 - the bicentennial of the revolution and the centenary of the tower.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Not forgetting the Australian Bicentennial (26th January 1988).
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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>I note that "sesquicentennial" is considered an Americanism. Have our British cousins never celebrated the 150th anniversary of anything?
On a less flippant note. My school celebrated 150 years when I was there and I remember it was called the "150th Anniversary", no frills. I don't remember any clever words being used for any anniversaries. I don't even remember any "bicentennials" of anything British.
In general I like to celebrate everything .. Diwali, Hannukah, Christmas, whatever's going really, so why not coin a few words for anniversaries!
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> On a less flippant note. My school celebrated 150 years when I was there and I remember it was called the "150th
Anniversary", no frills. I don't remember any clever words being used for any anniversaries. I don't even remember any
"bicentennials" of anything British.
Unusual, Jo. I thought you would have remembered that this year is the bicentennial of the British Act of Union which dissolved the Scottish and Irish parliaments and incorporated the two countries into the United Kingdom. Thanks, in great measure, to the 1798 rebellion in Ireland (another bicentennial).
The Australian bicentennial was a celebration of the 'discovery' of Australia by Captain Cook in 1788 and, as far as I remember, highly controversial.
As far as centenaries and bicentennials go we tend to celebrate institutions rather than events. A day of commemoration for a battle or historical event is commemorated only as long as there are survivors from that period. Otherwise the general day of commemoration is used.
The most recent event I can think of here was the 125th anniversary of the Irish Rugby Football Union which was celebrated with a match between the Barbarians FC and Ireland. Certain other events such as the 1916 rising are celebrated each year only by the government and die-hard republicans (although separately and for different reasons). To everybody else it is just an insignificant historical event.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Yep
We did discuss this in the Q&A Thread - Re: Great Britain/United Kingdom
I think the relevant word (which I intended to say but possibly missed out) was "Celebrate".
I was impressed this year with the way the French celebrated the first Bastille Day (14/7) of the new (or last of the old) millennium with a picnic the length of France.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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1789! And after 7 years of taking French, too! merdre indeed!  Golly, now watch me be wrong on 1976 as well! I didn't hear about the picnic, Jo! Neat!
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