# When will 9/11 become "just another date?" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 10, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292 "2010-09-10T14:43:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/41 "2010-09-10T23:39:44Z")
To start with, 4 wide-body aircraft were used to attack the financial, military, and political symbols of our country. It’s a bit hard to forget something like that. Beyond that, there was a recent terrorist attempt at bringing down another plane. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/42 "2010-09-10T23:45:26Z")
I don’t think people will forget it, but it will pass out of fresh and painful memory and eventually become an excuse for a day off and a mattress sale. Judging by Memorial Day, this will take approximately 60-80 years. ---
**Author:** ![ramel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb8c5e/32.png) [@ramel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ramel)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/43 "2010-09-11T04:48:06Z")
The 16 people who voted never, need to read more history books. There are plenty of historic events people thought at the time would be remembered forever, which today only a few history buffs know about. I mean, there are a lot of people who couldn’t say why the 3rd of September 1939 is important, and that had much greater impact than September 11th 2001. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/44 "2010-09-11T08:16:28Z")
> [@ramel](#): > > The 16 people who voted never, need to read more history books. There are plenty of historic events people thought at the time would be remembered forever, which today only a few history buffs know about. > > I mean, there are a lot of people who couldn’t say why the 3rd of September 1939 is important, and that had much greater impact than September 11th 2001. I hear ya, how many people know why veterans’ day is on 11/11? ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/45 "2010-09-11T11:45:48Z")
Well, I’m sure they’ll be a bit about on the news and of course the majority of people know the date. Having said that, no one has mentioned it to me today, nor did I see any events relating to it, though haven’t been in the centre today. Don’t think it’s a huge deal here in the north of Italy. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/46 "2010-09-11T12:04:34Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > > [@ramel](#): > > > > The 16 people who voted never, need to read more history books. There are plenty of historic events people thought at the time would be remembered forever, which today only a few history buffs know about. > > > > I mean, there are a lot of people who couldn’t say why the 3rd of September 1939 is important, and that had much greater impact than September 11th 2001. > > I hear ya, how many people know why veterans’ day is on 11/11? Commemoration of the signing of the armistice after WWI. It was signed at the eleventh hour also. ---
**Author:** ![CWN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bc79bd/32.png) [@CWN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CWN)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/47 "2010-09-11T12:31:11Z")
I think the main thing is that a lot of folks saw events live on TV. It was much more of a personal tragedy then hearing about it after the fact. People who have never been in NYC saw it as though it was a local event ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/48 "2010-09-11T12:33:06Z")
I said after 20 years but then I remembered that we refer to the event as 9/11. People might forget the year it happened in but I doubt we’ll forget the month and day anytime soon. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/49 "2010-09-11T14:14:43Z")
The boyfriend says eventually they’ll rename it, and I called bullshit but he reminded me about Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day and, god help us, Presidents Day, which is true. It’ll probably be Freedom Day or some such bullshit. Of course, my mom still says Armistice Day and my grandmother made some offhand comment a few years ago about Decoration Day. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/50 "2010-09-11T16:01:23Z")
The only way to keep it from receeding into living-then-dying memory would require creation of a formal holiday (which won’t happen mainly due to the fact that it can’t be moved to the nearest Monday). Same as jolly Abe Lincoln selling washer/dryers on Presidents Day, envision the commercial exploitation. “You’ll _jump_ for joy at these savings!” ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/51 "2010-09-11T16:31:42Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > > [@Johanna](#): > > > > The same 5% who don’t know the last name of the person buried in Grant’s Tomb. > > Nobody is buried in Grant’s tomb. 😉 Can someone explain this to me, once and for all? I’ve heard the question “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?” posed as a riddle before. I can never tell if it’s a “the answer is so obvious” riddle or a trick question. So [I looked it up](http://www.nps.gov/gegr/). > [@](#): > > Grant’s Tomb (as it is commonly called) is not only the final resting place of the General but a memorial to his life and accomplishments So that settles it. It’s an obvious-answer riddle. But then **pravnik** says “nobody” and I’m confused again. ---
**Author:** ![CWN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bc79bd/32.png) [@CWN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CWN)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/52 "2010-09-11T16:40:21Z")
Don’t be confused, Hiram Ulysses Grant (AKA Ulysses Simpson Grant) is buried in Grants Tomb. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/53 "2010-09-11T17:03:19Z")
As others have said, September 11 is pretty unique in that the date itself is synonymous with the event. That doesn’t tend to happen in the English-speaking world, in fact I’m sure many years ago I remember reading a humorous list called something like “You know you’re in the Third World when…” that included “… the street you’re standing on is named after a date”. Ceratinly a glance at the map in much of Africa has plenty of streets called things like “Avenue du 17 de juillet”. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/54 "2010-09-11T17:04:24Z")
> [@CWN](#): > > Don’t be confused, Hiram Ulysses Grant (AKA Ulysses Simpson Grant) is buried in Grants Tomb. actually, Grant and his wife. Grant was very explicit that his wife should be entombed with him, and she was. The joke about “nobody” being **buried** in Grant’s tomb, is that it’s above ground. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/55 "2010-09-11T17:27:55Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > As others have said, September 11 is pretty unique in that the date itself is synonymous with the event. That doesn’t tend to happen in the English-speaking world, in fact I’m sure many years ago I remember reading a humorous list called something like “You know you’re in the Third World when…” that included “… the street you’re standing on is named after a date”. > > Ceratinly a glance at the map in much of Africa has plenty of streets called things like “Avenue du 17 de juillet”. Actually, I think that’s more of a “speaks a Romance language or was colonized by a country that does” thing than a third world thing. There are plenty of streets named after dates in France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. (And then there’s Strasse des 17. Juni in Berlin, come to think of it…) > [@](#): > > And there were polls showing that a significant number of Americans didn`t know it happened in 2001 even in 2004 or 2005. Can you really say it’s more than just a date just because you remember the day, given that it has always been defined by the day it happened, if have no idea what year it occurred 4 or 9 years later? Obviously on the face of it, it’s not “just another date” to the 95% who know it, but they’re hardly honoring the victims or anything, they can’t even remember when it happened. I think I may have been answering a slightly different question than the OP asked. I was interpreting “just another date” to mean, “it can be September 11 and we will not automatically think of the attacks to a greater extent than, say, we think of D-Day when it happens to be June 6.” That’ll be a long time coming. Even when the attacks themselves fade into the historical background, if we can’t come up with something to call them other than “September 11,” the date September 11 will still call them to mind, no matter how faintly or indifferently. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/56 "2010-09-11T17:40:27Z")
Because I’m a dork like that, for interest’s sake I looked up on the Commission de Toponymie website all the place names in Quebec named after dates. There aren’t that many, so I guess it’s a recent tradition in Europe. Place du 21-Mars, Nicolet (a fire) Rue du 23-Avril-2001, Saint-Anaclet-de-Lessard (date of a referendum in which they voted not to merge with the city of Rimouski (!)) Doline du 26-Avril-1983, Boischatel (date on which the doline was formed by a flood) Rue du 3-Mai, Rawdon (unknown) Place du 6-Mai-1950, Rimouski (a fire) Rue du 24-Juin, Sherbrooke (Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day) Lac du 31-Août, Lac-Walker (unknown, but there are a lot of lakes in this region named for months, for some reason, including Lac de la Furie-d’Octobre) Ruelle du 3-Septembre, Saint-Hyacinthe (a fire) Rue du 12-Novembre, Nicolet (a landslide) Place du 6-Décembre-1989, Montreal (Ecole Polytechnique massacre) Lac du 17-Décembre, Lac-Walker (as above) (There are also lots of places named Cinq-Mars, but this is because Cinq-Mars is, for some reason, a reasonably widespread family name in Quebec.) What we can see is that in a lot of cases, they’re named for historic events that needed to be commemorated but are perhaps too painful to name the place for directly (fires, etc). They can’t exactly call it “Place de la Tuerie-de-l’Ecole-Polytechnique,” or “Place du Gros-Incendie-qui-a-Failli-Détruire-la-Cathédrale,” can they, so they call it by the date. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/57 "2010-09-11T21:39:51Z")
> [@ramel](#): > > I mean, there are a lot of people who couldn’t say why the 3rd of September 1939 is important, and that had much greater impact than September 11th 2001. If you’re talking about the start of World War II in Europe, that was on September 1st, 1939. Although the Western Allies apparently did declare war on Germany on the 3rd. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/58 "2010-09-11T22:06:40Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Because I’m a dork like that, for interest’s sake I looked up on the Commission de Toponymie website all the place names in Quebec named after dates. There aren’t that many, so I guess it’s a recent tradition in Europe. > > Place du 21-Mars, Nicolet (a fire) > Rue du 23-Avril-2001, Saint-Anaclet-de-Lessard (date of a referendum in which they voted not to merge with the city of Rimouski (!)) > Doline du 26-Avril-1983, Boischatel (date on which the doline was formed by a flood) > Rue du 3-Mai, Rawdon (unknown) > Place du 6-Mai-1950, Rimouski (a fire) > Rue du 24-Juin, Sherbrooke (Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day) > Lac du 31-Août, Lac-Walker (unknown, but there are a lot of lakes in this region named for months, for some reason, including Lac de la Furie-d’Octobre) > Ruelle du 3-Septembre, Saint-Hyacinthe (a fire) > Rue du 12-Novembre, Nicolet (a landslide) > Place du 6-Décembre-1989, Montreal (Ecole Polytechnique massacre) > Lac du 17-Décembre, Lac-Walker (as above) > > (There are also lots of places named Cinq-Mars, but this is because Cinq-Mars is, for some reason, a reasonably widespread family name in Quebec.) > > What we can see is that in a lot of cases, they’re named for historic events that needed to be commemorated but are perhaps too painful to name the place for directly (fires, etc). They can’t exactly call it “Place de la Tuerie-de-l’Ecole-Polytechnique,” or “Place du Gros-Incendie-qui-a-Failli-Détruire-la-Cathédrale,” can they, so they call it by the date. Very interesting work! But I can’t think of a _single_ equivalent American thing that’s referred to by date except 9/11 and maybe, by extension (because it’s a stretch to say it happened that day) the fourth of July. You wouldn’t see a fire or a mudslide or any other natural disaster, including something like Hurricane Katrina, referred to by date. What is the cultural reasoning? ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/59 "2010-09-12T01:35:05Z")
My guess is that it is because it can’t be defined as a single event. If it were just NY, they might call it World Trade Center Day or something. But there was also stuff at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. As a result, news reporters always referred to it as “the terrorist attacks of September 11th”, so the day seemed to take hold. It probably helps that it has the 911 emergency connection. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292/60 "2010-09-12T02:09:15Z")
I voted not in this generation, since I know the date of the Alamo, the Assasination of Arch-Duke Ferdinand, the Armistace after WWI, the outbreak of WWII, VE Day, VJ Day, the Kennedy Assassination, and a bunch of other historic dates. I still associate February 29th, 1984 with a “long walk in the snow” taken by Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Ok, to be fair, I was a history geek, but I knew these back before I was in high school, (except PET, I was in HS then) so it becomes a “chicken-or-the-egg?” type thing. But things move on, although this one will be slow. I am greatly cheered and relieved that we got through this year without any huge commeration of Diana, Princess of Wales, who happened to died the same date and year as my grandfather. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-9-11-become-just-another-date/553292.md?page=4)