Blumenau’s birthday or anniversary?

Blumenau is a Brazilian city in the southern state of Santa Catarina, where it’s believed that 30% of the city’s 400,000 residents are of German descent.

Since 1984, Blumenau hosts an Oktoberfest which is seen as the second biggest beer festival in the world, surpassed only by the original festival in Munich.

September 2 was Blumenau’s 172 anniversary.

BUT, BIRTHDAY OR ANNIVERSARY?

Na língua inglesa, essas são as duas palavras a serem usadas quando queremos nos referir à aniversário.

Há um consenso entre os professores de inglês brasileiros, que se for o aniversário de uma pessoa, usamos o substantivo birthday pois, como o próprio nome já diz, refere-se ao dia do nascimento (birth significa “nascimento” e day significa “dia”).

E que usamos anniversary para referir-se à data em que um evento importante aconteceu, como aniversário de casamento, aniversário da cidade, ou a data da fundação de alguma empresa ou instituição. Veja:

Mas nas minhas pesquisas, encontrei diferentes resultados.

Instead of giving rules and exceptions, I’ll show you the result of my search. / Em vez de dar regras e exceções, lhe mostrarei o resultado dela.

Birthday

The anniversary of the birth of a person.

He was in New York to celebrate his 74th birthday.

The date on which someone is born or something is created, more commonly called birthdate or date of birth.

Anniversary

(especially) The date on which a couple married or the date on which a romance began. It also means the celebration which takes place on an anniversary day.

We are celebrating our tenth anniversary today.

Anniversary

A day that is an exact number of years (to the day) since a given significant event occurred. Often preceded by an ordinal number indicating the number of years.

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war.

Speech on the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

WVU vigil, other remembrance events planned to mark 20th anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Birthday and anniversary

The anniversary of the day on which something is created.

Birthday and anniversary

The anniversary of something’s origin or foundation.

The holiday is to celebrate the city anniversary.

The City of Cleveland Orchestra is celebrating its 200th birthday.

Happy 10th birthday: UNU-CRIS – United Nations University

Hats off to Academia Sinica’s Institute of Law on its tenth birthday!

Interestingly, even though we don’t usually refer to birth dates as “anniversaries,” we use the death anniversary when referring to death dates. / Curiosamente, embora geralmente não nos refiramos a datas de nascimento como “anniversary”, usamos “aniversário” de morte quando nos referimos a datas de falecimento.

Remembering dad on his death anniversary is a great agony.

The 100th anniversary of the birth of composer Benjamin Britten.

However, unless you qualify the noun anniversary, it is generally taken to mean a wedding anniversary. If you say, Today is my anniversary, unless the context indicates otherwise, you would be speaking of your wedding anniversary.

For other anniversaries, use a qualifier as well. For your employment, you can say work anniversary.

For anniversaries, such as a nation’s birthday, we use a recognized proper name. For the United States, July 4 refers to as “Independence Day.”

These national anniversaries, celebrated in most countries, are called national days. These are the dates of independence or adoption of a new constitution or form of government. 

Well, I hope this information was of some help to you. At least I’m sure you have no doubts about how to greet someone on their birthday, right? 😉

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