What's the date / day today?

Question

Hi,A) What's the date today? --&gt; (Today is) 19th August.B) What's the day today? --&gt; (Today is) Saturday.Could you please answer the following questions:1) What are the alternative ways of asking about the current day/date? (E.g. What day is today? What day is it today?)2) Which of them are the most common and natural ones?3) I've heard some non-native speakers respond with "Today it is &lt;date or day here&gt;." Is that OK? Sounds uncommon to me. However, "It is &lt;date or day here&gt;." sounds completely OK to me.4) Are the two t's in "What's the date today?" pronounced as one t in relaxed/fast speech? Such as in "I want to..." Well, I'd say they are.5) A husband forgot his wife's birthday and she wants to subtly remind him. What question is she going to ask? (Interestingly enough, in my mother tongue she'd say something very similar to B ).6) Americans write dates in the Month, Day format. As far as I know, both of these are correct: August 19 and August 19th. Which is more common?7) How do Americans pronounce the date in 6)? As far as I know, the definite article is optional: "August (the) nineteenth". Is "August nineteen" OK? Sounds strange but who knows...Thanks in advance, as always.

Philip · Accepted Answer

PastsimpleHi,

A) What's the date today? --> (Today is) 19th August.

B) What's the day today? --> (Today is) Saturday.

Could you please answer the following questions:

1) What are the alternative ways of asking about the current day/date? (E.g. What day is today? What day is it today?)Both are fine.
2) Which of them are the most common and natural ones?
3) I've heard some non-native speakers respond with "Today it is <date or day here>." I would use this when describing the weather. Is that OK? Sounds uncommon to me. However, "It is <date or day here>."O.K. sounds completely OK to me.
4) Are the two t's in "What's the date today?" pronounced as one t in relaxed/fast speech? Such as in "I want to..." Well, I'd say they are. Essentially, yes. There is a slight hesitation before continuing.
5) A husband forgot his wife's birthday and she wants to subtly remind him. What question is she going to ask? (Interestingly enough, in my mother tongue she'd say something very similar to B ).????
6) Americans write dates in the Month, Day format. As far as I know, both of these are correct: August 19 and August 19th. Which is more common?The first one, in writing.
7) How do Americans pronounce the date in 6)? As far as I know, the definite article is optional: "August (the) nineteenth". Is "August nineteen" OK? Sounds strange but who knows...I think we use the ordinal more often than the cardinal.

Thanks in advance, as always.

I hope this helps. I've no idea what you're getting at in 5).

Pastsimple · Answer

PhilipI hope this helps. I've no idea what you're getting at in 5).

Thanks, it helped.

As for 5:

We know that some husbands do keep forgetting their wives' birthdays. More often than not, the wife has to remind her husband in some way. When subtler (?) ways of reminding failed, the conversation may go like this:

Wife: Do you have any idea what day it is today? --> This may not be correct. I'm looking for the/a correct/natural question here. And a "subtle" one.
Husband: (remembers it's her birthday but pretends he hasn't got it: ) Well, Friday.
In a state of panic, the husband runs off to buy some flowers and Belgian chocolates.

Have I made it any clearer?

Aperisic · Answer

A) What's the date today? --> (Today is) 19th August.

B) What's the day today? --> (Today is) Saturday.

Could you please answer the following questions:

6) Americans write dates in the Month, Day format. As far as I know, both of these are correct: August 19 and August 19th. Which is more common?

August 19th is common for historical events or any important dates, it is the formal style.

August 19 about 8 times more common.

6)? As far as I know, the definite article is optional: "August (the) nineteenth". Is "August nineteen" OK?

You said it but to make it strict: you do not write a figure of day, it always goes as a number 19 or 19th. But you read it as an ordinal number. British read with the American without the: August nineteenth. (But, August nineteen is not correct) In front. it is always the nineteenth of April.

BarbaraPA · Answer

Your #5 sounds just right to me. Much better than "You forgot my birthday, you clod."

MichalS · Answer

So in a conversation I would say, eg:

On december first, twenty-third, twenty-ninth, etc, right?

Are they correct?

Pastsimple · Answer

MichalSSo in a conversation I would say, eg: On december first, twenty-third, twenty-ninth, etc, right? Are they correct?

Yes. If you were American, that is. A Brit would say "On the first of December" instead.

Aperisic · Answer

Pastsimple
MichalSSo in a conversation I would say, eg: On december first, twenty-third, twenty-ninth, etc, right? Are they correct?
Yes. If you were American, that is. A Brit would say "On the first of December" instead.

Brit would say

December the first, the twenty-third, the twenty-ninth as well

Anonymous · Answer

1)What day is today? or What's today's date?

2) What day is today?

3) In spoken english "It's Saturday" better than "It is Saturday"

4) It depends of the region or what part of the country belong the speaker. Correctly will be: "I want (accent up) to (neutral) know (acent down)".

5) What"s today?

6)August 19th

7)August nineteenth

Anonymous · Answer

I'm a Californian and ask my ESL students at the beginning of each class, "What's the date today?" and "What day is it today?" I know that there are several variations, and now I see that my "it" in the second question is superfluous, but that is just how they roll off my tongue. Thanks for this. I was looking for some ideas on Subject-Verb identification for a lesson plan.

What's the date / day today?

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