3

June 22, 1911 (1)

On the day King George V (2) was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London, Billy Williams went down the pit in Aberowen, South Wales.
(Ken Follett, Fall of Giants)

It’s 16 March. (3) (Essential Grammar in Use)

How do you read those three parts with numbers?

Jasper
  • 24,268
  • 4
  • 54
  • 86
Listenever
  • 24,139
  • 38
  • 136
  • 254

1 Answers1

5

Americans would normally pronounce them:

June twenty-second <pause> nineteen eleven

It's March sixteenth

and Brits would tend to pronounce them:

Twenty-second of June <pause> nineteen eleven.

It's the sixteenth of March.

In both American and British English "George V", is pronounced:

George the fifth.

Community
  • 1
Matt
  • 11,820
  • 1
  • 31
  • 54
  • I appreciate it. And I would be happy if you add the second: George V. – Listenever Sep 21 '13 at 01:04
  • 1
    @Listenever: Oops! Didn't see that one there. I've updated my answer to include it. – Matt Sep 21 '13 at 01:12
  • 2
    Tiny correction on the American usage: we do say March sixteenth, but we would write that as March 16th. If the actual text was written as 16 March, I'd read the words aloud as "sixteen March", exactly as they're written. Now if the speaker understands that this is the British way of writing dates then they might correct it and say "March 16th" out loud. But if I were reading from a transcript, for example, I'd be likely to say it as it's written, not as the way I'd write it. (Just thought I'd make a note since the question is re: pronunciation, not just AmE/BrE differences. @Liste) +1 – WendiKidd Sep 21 '13 at 02:06
  • Actually now that I think about it, isn't the reverse likely to be true with #1 as well? You would write #1 as 22 June, 1911, right? So if it were written that way, you'd of course say it that way out loud. But if you were reading June 22, 1911, how would you pronounce it then? (No questions on this site end up intriguing me more than ones regarding the difference between different dialects of English. It's amazing what you think you know, and then someone else does it completely differently! At yet they're equally correct.) – WendiKidd Sep 21 '13 at 02:11
  • 1
    @WendiKidd I'm also an American English speaker, and if I saw "16 March", I'd probably read it "the sixteenth of March". I do think Matt's answer is good, though. Pronouncing it "March sixteenth" seems equally plausible to me, even though it's not what I'd personally read it as. –  Sep 21 '13 at 02:26
  • @snailboat Oh, I definitely think Matt's answer is good (I upvoted it :)). I just always wonder about these things. It's very interesting to me. I don't think I really say "the sixteenth of March" very often; it sounds much more formal to me. I go for "March sixteenth" myself :) – WendiKidd Sep 21 '13 at 02:35
  • One exception is "OS X". Many people (including me) pronounce it "Oh ess ex", not "Oh ess ten". – Golden Cuy Sep 21 '13 at 06:23
  • 1
    And since American military usage places the date before the month, "sixteen March" becomes fairly standard speech in that environment. – John M. Landsberg Sep 21 '13 at 07:46