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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?

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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.

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  • I appreciate it. And I would be happy if you add the second: George V. – Listenever Sep 21 '13 at 1:04
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    @Listenever: Oops! Didn't see that one there. I've updated my answer to include it. – Matt Sep 21 '13 at 1:12
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    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 2:06
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    @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. – snailplane♦ Sep 21 '13 at 2:26
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    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 7:46

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