Re: Five year anniversary?

P. Isabelle [TAO] (isabelle@citi.doc.ca)
Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:20:05 -0400

>> ... there is some controversy within the University concerning the
>> wording incorporated in the new logo: 'Five Year Anniversary'. People
>> are arguing that the phraseology is "wrong" and that 'Fifth Anniversary'
>> would be "better". I have been asked to adjudicate. I copy below one of
>> the e-mails I have received on the subject.
>>
>> "If the English is wrong, I think it should be corrected, particularly
>> for a logo to be copied a thousand time for circulation. You know these
>> days the community has already been complaining on the poor English of
>> students. It would be embarassing to let them laugh that not only
>> students' English are bad, those of the teachers are not good either.
>> Please confirm that whether this is wrong! Thanks."
>>

In a database made up of three years of the Canadian Hansard (making
up about 25 million words) I found approximately 300 matches of
the type "Ordinal + anniversary" but only 4 matches of the type
"Number + year + anniversary". So, the latter form does occur once in
a while but it is rare. Here are the 4 examples:

June 13 will be the one - year | Le 13 juin marquera le premier
anniversary of the tabling in this | anniversaire du dépôt à la Chambre du
House of Bill C-22 . | projet de loi C-22 .

That is the 10 year anniversary of | C' est le dixième anniversaire du
the national Liberal national energy | Programme énergétique national des
policy . | libéraux .

This is the one - year anniversary of | C' est aujourd'hui le premier
the tragic killing of 14 women in | anniversaire de la terrible tuerie de
Montreal . | 14 femmes à l' École polytechnique de
| Montréal .

I am putting her on notice , come the | Je l' avise ici que , le jour
one year anniversary of the Montreal | anniversaire de la tuerie de Montréal
killings , I will be putting a | , je vais lui poser une question sur
question to her as to what has | ce qu' il est advenu de son projet de
happened with her bill and what she | loi et sur ce qu' elle a fait .
has done . |

Note that in all these cases English was the source language and
French its translation. If you feel this is poor English, blame it on
our MP's, not our translators.

-- 
Pierre Isabelle                            tel: (514) 973-5801
CITI, 1575 Chomedey Blvd,                  fax: (514) 973-5757
Laval, Quebec, Canada H7V 2X2              e-mail: isabelle@citi.doc.ca