Happy What Now?
Every year, I steel myself for this day and its unwelcome celebratory wishes. This year, I have a place to rant about it.
Wishing Americans a “happy fourth of July” never fails to set me off. It’s among the most conceptually vacuous phrases regularly uttered. I have other problems with this holiday, but first things first.
We are not celebrating the fourth day of July per se. Expressing holiday wishes in this manner is akin to saying to one’s Christian colleagues, “Happy twenty-fifth of December!” The date has no inherent value—it’s the memory of an event that (allegedly) happened in a previous year on this date1 that is being commemorated. We even use a more specific term when observing events with a much narrower focus, viz., “happy birthday.”
I don’t know who started calling Independence Day “the fourth of July,” which is probably for the best—it prevents me from roasting them. Outside of the Oliver Stone movie title, it’s silly to use the date as the signifier for the observance. Are the differences between common and proper nouns not taught any more?
It’s even more silly to those who know their history. One can make a persuasive argument for July 2 being Independence Day: on that day in 1776, the Lee Resolution—also known as “The Resolution for Independence”— was passed by the Second Continental Congress.
The Declaration of Independence, which announced and enumerated the arguments for independence, was approved on July 4, 1776. So in a sense, we’re celebrating the icing being put on the cake baked two days before.
1: as long as one is marking time by the Gregorian calendar. (back to the article)