“Independence Day” is more descriptive, but “Fourth of July” is the name given in the 1938 act that extended pay for the federal holiday.Here at SbaCL Headquarters, we're more about co-dependence than independence, but in hono(u)r of the holiday, my Twittered Difference of the DayTM was:
BrE 'the American War of Independence' vs. AmE 'Revolutionary War'.In more formal contexts, I should add, you're likely to find American Revolution in AmE.
But then I read this New York Times article (pointed out by Not From Around Here) in which the English historian author writes of the War of American Independence. Oh no, I thought, I got it wrong. Or did I? Google gave me nearly ten times as many War of American Independences (1.3 million) as American War of Independences (144k). Searching just .uk sites, the difference is still there: 69k American independences and 16k American wars. But it still didn't ring true for me, or, it turns out, at least one of my Twitter followers, so I re-checked it in the British National Corpus, which gives us (among its 100 million words) 23 American War of Independences and 3 War of American Independences. Now, the BNC texts are from the 1980s and early 1990s, and of course most web text is later than that. And the web is not a reliable corpus, since it isn't balanced between different types of texts and it includes a great amount of repetition. But still, one has to wonder whether the adjective-placement tide has changed.
Incidentally, the (Anglo-American) War of 1812 is sometimes known as the Second War of American Independence. It's one of those things that every American schoolchild will have to learn about, but you'll be hard-pressed to find an English person who's heard of it. Why? Well,
As an aside, revolutionary is typically pronounced differently in US and UK. In AmE it has six syllables: REvoLUtioNAry. In BrE, it may drop the 'a' (revolution'ry) as part of a general pattern of reduction of vowel+ry at the ends of words--thus it has one main stress (-LU-) and one secondary stress (RE-), unlike the two secondaries in AmE. Also, in BrE 'u' may be pronounced with an on-glide (see this old post for explanation). Both of those "BrE" pronunciation features are not found throughout BrE. I'd consider them to be features of RP ('Received Pronunciation'), but I'm sure others (you, perhaps?) can comment better on geographical distribution.
I hope that wherever you are and whatever you're celebrating, you're having a lovely fourth of July. I usually try to (orig. AmE) cook out to mark the day, but I discovered yesterday that our* (AmE) grill/(BrE) barbecue** has been murdered by scaffolders. My beloved Weber! And this is how I came to celebrate American independence by eating a Sunday roast dinner complete with Yorkshire pudding and parsnips at a pub (with lime cordial and soda). As I said, co-dependent, not independent.
*Oh, who am I kidding? It's mine. Vegetarian Better Half could not care less.
** I mark this as BrE because in AmE a barbecue is generally the event (this sense also found in BrE) or the food (as in I miss good barbecue--it is a mass noun, and particularly used in the South). When I say it refers to 'the food' I emphatically do not mean overcooked burgers and sausages, the scourge of British summer entertaining. What constitutes barbecue varies regionally in the US--in some places it's specifically pork, in others beef. And it will involve smoking and special sauces. And it will be tender and tasty. Where you are when you order some barbecue will in large part determine where on the sweet-to-spicy continuum the barbecue will fall.