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I'm not a native speaker but I was under the impression that when you want to say that an event concludes on a certain date you can't omit the "on". However, a native speaker told me that having the "on" sounds strange to them, at least in the particular case we are dealing with. The sentence in particular is:

The event begins on Friday evening and concludes on Monday midday.

They say the second "on", following concludes" sounds strange and they would omit it. Can someone explain which one is correct?

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    The problem is that midday is a time. So it can conclude on Monday at midday. Or it can conclude Monday at midday. Or it can conclude at midday on Monday.
    – Jim
    Commented Jun 20, 2021 at 23:41
  • Good point. So "conclude Monday at midday" without "on" is correct? Also, if I use "noon" would it I still need to use "at", or can I say "Monday noon"?
    – Aayla Secura
    Commented Jun 21, 2021 at 0:05
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    Using 'concludes' rather than 'ends' sounds a little formal: even unnatural. If something concludes it probably also commences. If it begins it probably ends. I think Jim's second option ("concludes Monday") is used more in the US than here in the UK. We'd probably use one of his others, or say it "begins on Friday evening and ends at noon/midday on Monday."
    – Old Brixtonian
    Commented Jun 21, 2021 at 2:12
  • @OldBrixtonian, those USAns are fond of omitting words, as you find if you ask one to say that you'll write to your brother about a hundred and ten things that happened on the 19th of June.
    – Toby Speight
    Commented Jun 22, 2021 at 16:17
  • @Toby Speight: You'll write your brother about one hundred ten things that happened June 19th. A good exercise! How did I do? I don't think 'about' can be omitted. And I'm not convinced the 'one' is right.
    – Old Brixtonian
    Commented Jun 23, 2021 at 0:08

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The problem here is the "evening" part. With things like DAY + "evening" (or "morning" or "afternoon," the "on" is optional.

You're right that we use "on" with dates, but dates are things like "I saw her on Friday, March 10th." We also use it with days (alone), like "I saw her on Friday." But "Friday evening" is neither a day nor a date. It's an evening, modified by "Friday."

I've been avoiding mentioning "midday" in this answer since I don't use that term ever. I'd recognize it if someone used it, but would never say it myself, so it's possible that I might say something incorrect about it. It's possible that your friend doesn't use it either, and that that was making the example sentence sound odd to them.

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  • Thanks for clarifying. So you would say "I saw her Friday evening" and not "I saw her on Friday evening"? Interesting, I always thought that adding a time of day doesn't change the grammatical function of the date/time specification. As for midday, I don't use it either. My suggestion was "Monday noon", but my friend, the native speaker, changed it to midday, so that's definitely their style. They had an issue with the "on" preposition only. Just to clarify, is "The event begins on Friday evening and concludes Monday midday/noon" correct, without "on"?
    – Aayla Secura
    Commented Jun 21, 2021 at 23:24
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    I actually treat "noon" differently from "evening," "morning," and "afternoon". I'd say "The event begins Friday evening" (no "on") "and ends Monday at noon". To me "Monday noon" is not grammatical. It sounds old-fashioned, at best, like something from the 1940s or so. But apparently other people say it. (I see 17 instances of "Monday noon" in the Corpus of Contemporary American English, for example.)
    – Linguist Lindley
    Commented Jun 22, 2021 at 14:46

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