I think that, like a hosepipe ban, we might just be spared the permanent establishment of the term 7/7. After all, some people were inexplicably fond of the phrase Y2K, meaning 2000, and it seems as ridiculous now as platform soles for men.
I find 7/7 distasteful. It is non-native, and it makes claims for an event that unfortunately are unlikely to persist. The bombs of 7 July were certainly not as important as the atrocities of 11 September 2001, nor will they remain as memorable. It is only by a fluke that 7/7 is as transparent to British English-speakers as to American, for they put their days and months round the wrong way. It is this habit that momentarily makes me think every now and then that the attacks of 9/11 occurred on 9 November.
But even if you called it 7 July, I do not think it would stay long in our national consciousness.
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