The Number Comma with

Dates

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When used with dates, the number comma separates the day of a week from the month and the day of a month from the year.

Use the Comma When There’s a Day in the Date

This use of the number comma with dates is also referred to as the date comma. In standard American usage, complete date information is arranged as the day of the week, month, day of the month, and then the year:

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Notice that the date comma has two uses, and they’re both connected to the days of a date:

1) the date comma separates the day of the week from the month:

Tuesday,March 12, 2019

2) and it separates the day of the month from the year:

Tuesday, March 12,2019

ExpandedInsights

This Should Help You Memorize the Pattern:

Expanded

Insights

This Should Help You Memorize the Pattern:

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It helps to think of these different time references as distinct units:

(day of week) ,(month and day of month) ,(year)

Whenever a date uses more than one of these units side by side, a date comma separates them. And when more than one of these units appear side by side with other words after them in a sentence, a pair of date commas surround the final unit:

Are you available Tuesday,March 12,for a road trip?
I have March 12,2019,marked on my calendar.

That’s it! These are the only uses of the date comma.

Don’t Use It to Separate a Month or Season from the Year

It’s simple: if you don’t use a day in the date, you don’t use the date comma. You never use it to separate the month from the year or the season from the year, not even when they occur in sentences with information after them:

The March 2019 meteor shower might drop even better souvenirs than the spring 2017 meteorite fall!

Additionally, don’t use the date comma when determiners (such as a, the, every) or prepositions connect a date’s units together:

Let’s go on Tuesday, March the 12th in 2019.

United Kingdom Standard English differs from American usage by placing the day of the month before the month:
Tuesday, 12 March 2019
That will be handy to know when you apply to Oxford U.

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