It’s as if everyone has simultaneously forgotten that the word 'year' is already present, albeit disguised, in 'anniversary'. Photograph: Getty Images

I must have missed the meeting where it was decided that, instead of saying “first anniversary” or “fifth anniversary”, as we always used to, people would henceforth say “one-year anniversary”, and so on.

This was mainly an American habit at first. But of late, for example, I’ve seen a headline in the Galway Advertiser about the “five-year anniversary of Hangar 7 in Shannon”. And in the current issue of Scotland’s the National, there’s a story about a Gaelic language charity announcing a “10-year anniversary gig”.

It’s as if everyone has simultaneously forgotten that the word “year” is alre

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