Hi Fellow Zuiks,
At the risk of starting a flame war (which I don't want), can I just point out
(then run for cover) that most non-US residents who have had any
involvement with international things have noticed that people in the USA are
the only ones in the world who reverse the sequence of date components in
the middle.
Most (all?) others go from small part to large part, or vice-versa. i.e.
year/month/day/hour/minute/second.
without flipping the positions of a pair in the middle.
That way you know exactly what is intended. So if I am writing something
where I suspect that a USA reader may use it, I write the name of the month
out in full. eg November, not rebmevoN <g>
What was news to me is what Mickey has just pointed out - that BOTH
systems are in use in the USA, depending on whether you are an ordinary
citizen, or a Government writer. In this situation, how can you be sure which
is intended except for looking for illogicalities, such as month 28.
I have a friend who gets around all this by writing the month number in
Roman format. So June is VI, October is X.
Just one of those interesting differences between countries and the use of
language. There are plenty of others. Eg; 'rubber' in NZ = eraser. "Fanny" in
the USA is situated at the back; here at the front.
Another one which threw me when I first encountered it when visiting Sweden
in the 1960s, is the use of "." and "," in number series. Then (and now?),
Swedes will teach and write $1.000,00 where I would write $1,000.00.
Then of course there is the serious matter of "billion". The usage I grew up
with is "billion" = "million x million", whereas USA usage is "billion" =
"thousand x million". The only safe, unambiguous way out of this one is to
use mathematical notation - "X times 10 to the power of (whatever)".
This (billion) confusion crops up all the time and is a pain.
So long as we respect and understand our differences, there shouldn't be a
problem. Who is to say which is the "right" way.
Brian
> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2001 09:07:49 -0500
> From: "Mickey Trageser" <mickeytr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [OM] Airport security
>
> Wayne-
> In the US, we normally express dates in the form Month/Day/Year
> (09/11/2001). The event is commonly referred to as 'nine-eleven' here. An
> exception to the date convention is in the US military, government and some
> local governments will express the date as Day/Month/Year, where the Month is
> expressed as the word (11 November 2001). Some computers store the date as 8
> digits in the form yyyymmdd (20010911) and display it in the form of your
> choice.
>
> OM content. I briefly had a digital data back on my OM-4. It allowed the
> user to select the preferred date display format.
>
> - -Mickey
...................................................
Zuikoholics, enablers, one and all.
Feeding fantasies, emptying pockets!
---------------------------------------------------
Brian Swale, 140 Panorama Road,
Christchurch 8008, N.Z.
Tel +64 3 326 7447
http://homepages.caverock.net.nz/~bj/photography/
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