1

Good afternoon, I need to express a date range, it's for an advertisement so not a formal affair. My difficulty is the amount of conflicting opinions on how dates should be written. Anyway, the sentence would be: Take advantage of the offers between the 15th and 26th of December!

Is this correct or can it be shortened by not using ordinals? Or, should it be written in another way completely?

I'd mention that it's directed to a mainly British audience.

Anthony
  • 135
  • It looks and sounds fine as you have it. –  Dec 14 '17 at 19:35
  • 1
    How to represent dates is largely a matter of style. Adhere to the discipline of your editor, publication, or organization, or in the absence of a house style, adopt a style manual appropriate to your tastes and audience and be consistent in its application. – choster Dec 14 '17 at 19:38
  • Would "Take advantage of the offers between 15 and 26 December!" be correct as well? (I understand that "the" and "of" can be eliminated when written like this). – Anthony Dec 14 '17 at 20:05
  • Related https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/420/what-is-the-best-format-to-use-when-writing-out-dates – k1eran Dec 14 '17 at 20:25
  • It doesn't touch on date ranges though. – Anthony Dec 14 '17 at 20:42

1 Answers1

0

As your drive is to get as many people to respond as possible, consider including the day, as well as the date, as in:

'Between Friday the 15th of December and Boxing Day 26th December' - because then, people are able to connect with and visualise what they are doing on that day in their own lives, which helps them to consider how they might then have time to take up your offer - which can positively affect the degree of response you attract.

For example, they might think: 'oooh Friday! I'll check on that offer when I'm at the supermarket tonight!' Or 'Oh it's on til Boxing Day! Great, I'll check it out when we go to town for the sales!'

So, include the day, and you help to create more involvement and mental process in your reader about how they can join.

Otherwise they may miss the offer, having not realised that it starts today - which is Friday...

Hope this helps! ☃️

Jelila
  • 5,621