Current Events > Weird question for UK/Austr. CEmen: Do you call months by their ordinal number?

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One of my jobs is with sample tokens of things people are likely to say to a customer service chatbot. In the British and Australian examples (also South Africa, but I don't usually work with that set), we keep getting people saying things like "the fifth of the fourth" to mean "April 5th" or "the seventeenth of nine" to mean "September 17th."

Is that real? Do you actually talk like that or are the people generating the phrases just low on ideas?



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Yeah, like "twenty second of April" or "ninth of August". That's how we do dates over here.

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You'd only possibly say them both as numbers if you were reading the date written in short hand.

MrMallard posted...

Yeah, like "twenty second of April" or "ninth of August". That's how we do dates over here.

But they're not saying "twenty-second of April" in these tokens, they say "twenty-second of the fourth." It sounds so contrived and fake to me.

Glob posted...

You'd only possibly say them both as numbers if you were reading the date written in short hand.

So, like "It was six eight twenty-twenty" or something? I'm used to that, that's normal. But this is specifically referring to months with their ordinal numbers like it's a normal thing. Calling November "the eleventh" in casual speech stuff. I think it's just running low on ideas; these prompts get repetitive fast.

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VanananaHeyHey posted...

But they're not saying "twenty-second of April" in these tokens, they say "twenty-second of the fourth." It sounds so contrived and fake to me.

So, like "It was six eight twenty-twenty" or something? I'm used to that, that's normal. But this is specifically referring to months with their ordinal numbers like it's a normal thing. Calling November "the eleventh" in casual speech stuff. I think it's just running low on ideas; these prompts get repetitive fast.

No, more like if you saw 04.03.21 you might refer to it as 'the fourth of the third.'

Glob posted...

No, more like if you saw 04.03.21 you might refer to it as 'the fourth of the third.'

:o Okay, neat. Thanks! I can keep marking these OK in good conscience, then.

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i hear old people say it like that. i am in the USA.

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JumpstyIe posted...

i hear old people say it like that. i am in the USA.

Truly? Wild! Where in the US? We haven't gotten it in any US data yet other than the stuff that was internally-generated as fillers.

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YYYYMMDD is the best format anyway.

Nothing's ever improved until someone's brave enough to say "This is fucking stupid, we should change it".

In Colorado:
"What's the date today?"
"6th"
"Errr are you sure? Because i think we're closer to the end of the month"
"Yes, 6/28"
"So it's the 28th then, you should've led with that."
"I was looking at my calendar."

In Oxford:
"What's the date today?"
"28th"
"Thanks"

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We do say it, but only really when we get asked our date of birth for something official / over the phone. It's not used so much in regular conversation.

If it's a static number + year (to the person saying it) then usually but otherwise no
Birthdates for example are commonly said as 8th of the 11th 1977 aka November, day 8, year 1977

BarbaricAvatar posted...

Nothing's ever improved until someone's brave enough to say "This is fucking stupid, we should change it".

In Colorado:
"What's the date today?"
"6th"
"Errr are you sure? Because i think we're closer to the end of the month"
"Yes, 6/28"
"So it's the 28th then, you should've led with that."
"I was looking at my calendar."

Actually, that's wrong because they don't use th/rd/st from what i've seen. This is more realistic:

"What's the date today?"
"6"
"Errr 6 what?"
"June"
"Huh." *Goes off to ask someone else*

"Hello, do you know what the date today is?
"6/28"
"That's funny, i make it 9pm... i didn't want to know what the time was though."
"June 28"
*Sighs* "The 28th then. Great, thanks."
"Anytime. If you need anything else, feel free to ask."
"Fuck no."


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Never heard "Eighth of the 2nd" but "8th of February " all the time

i still get it muddled sometimes when I'm talking to Americans and the British at the same time

Strangely the UK has accepted "9/11" tho. Even though it should be "11th of September"

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It's said like in the OP some times, but 99% of the time it'll be "8th of August".

How come Americans call it "4th of July" when every other date is done the other way round?

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Oatcakes posted...

How come Americans call it "4th of July" when every other date is done the other way round?

4th of July is an alternate name for Independence Day.

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mustachedmystic posted...

4th of July is an alternate name for Independence Day.

Yes I know that, I just think it's strange how it gets said that way round.

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Almost as if the guys who said it were British until 1 second before they said it or something

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What a weird "gotcha"

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