I thought I would never require myself to comment on this subject, but the recent deluge of emails announcing anniversaries and milestone dates has prompted me into it.
This is about the correct, and incorrect, usage of “anniversary”.
We all know what first anniversary means. It is the recurrence of an event – usually a very important event – on the exact date after a year the event took place. Thus, if a wedding took place yesterday, 9 January 2012, the couple’s first wedding anniversary will be on 9 January 2013, second anniversary on 9 January 2014, and so on and so forth.
But what if someone would like to refer to an important event, say, seven months after the event happened? Well, we simply say “seven months after the event” or a similar phrase but not “seventh month anniversary”. If the time frame of reporting is say, six months after the observance of the first anniversary, we say “six months after the first anniversary” or “18 months after…” but not “one-and-half anniversary”.
This also means one should not say “second year anniversary” because that is a redundancy.
The rule to remember is that “anniversary” is measured with years like “annum” or “annual”.
If it is any consolation, even professional journalists get into trouble with the wrong usage. I remember a month after a strong tsunami hit Bali many years ago, a Sydney reporter wrote in a major daily – “on the first month anniversary of the tsunami… ”
I faxed a letter to the editor on this oversight. My letter did not see the light of day nor did I receive a response from the editor, but that was the last time I saw that incorrect and funny usage of “anniversary”. In that paper, anyway.
At times we feel this is a very minor thing. But its misuse says a lot about the writer or the speaker.
Posted on the run from a mobile phone…
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