Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July
. . .
(Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone)
The first reader (Stephen Fry) says ‘the thirty first of July,’ and the second one (Jim Dale) ‘thirty one July.’ I’m confused whether the latter can be used or not. Would you tell me?
Best Answer
A date written as "July 31" can be equally correctly pronounced "July thirty-one" and "July thirty-first". It stands to reason that a date written as "31 July" can also be pronounced a number of ways, including the bare "thirty-one July".
Note that to American ears, writing a date as "31 July" is unnatural to begin with, so how you pronounce it makes very little difference. Jim Dale has lived in the USA since 1980, so perhaps that had an influence on how he chose to read a date format that he rarely encounters anymore. More likely, though, this was a stylistic choice to reflect that he was reading a newspaper article, where conciseness —even terseness— is the order of the day.