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Pet Peeve -- numbers for dates

So, the Brits would write 4/7/2019 for July 4th 2019 and the Americans write 7/4/2019. The problems is people don't always say if they are British or American when they write numbers for dates. I see this all the time and it drives me batty. It is only helpful if one of the numbers excluding the year is over 12.
 

ajkel64

Check Out Chick
Staff member
I get caught on the forum here all the time with dates. Here in Australia we use the British way of writing down dates. Sometimes I have to do a double take when reading some dates. I understand your Pet Peeve.
 
Day/Month/Year or Year/Month/Day are the only two systems that make sense, as they are both "progressions" (in opposite directions). Naturally, the US adopted the Month/Day/Year just to mess with the rest of the world.

For the record, I am a D/M/Y guy whenever it comes up.
 
20190515 is the only system that makes sense. This way, it's easy to arrange files in order based on the date. If more accuracy is needed add the time with a 24 hour clock.
 
Naturally, the US adopted the Month/Day/Year just to mess with the rest of the world.
And they're way behind on adopting the metric clock.
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Ad Astra

The Instigator
And they're way behind on adopting the metric clock.
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You need the military/Euro version, which goes up to midnight (2000) ...

This is thoroughly difficult to wrap one's head around. I'm sure it works fine on Mars ... or was it Venus?

AA
 
I believe this is the true reason America fought its revolutionary war.

This, and the abomination that is apple pie and a slice of cheddar cheese.
 

Doc4

Stumpy in cold weather
Staff member
Drives me nuts when I see "two digit, two digit, two digit" as a means of expressing a date. Okay, if the "day" digits happen to be for the latter half of the month, then at least the "day" part is going to be understandable.

But ...

The one and only way to do it that does not involve any confusion is to remove confusion as follows:
  • year shown as four digits.
  • month by two letters, not digits. And yes, if you pick the right letters, you have each month represented without confusion!
  • January: JA (only "J" month with an "a" as well)
  • February: FE
  • March: MR (only "M" month with an "r")
  • April: AL (only "A" month with an "l")
  • May: MY
  • June: JN
  • July: JY
  • August: AU
  • September: SE
  • October: OC
  • November: NO
  • December: DE
 
I still write it 04JUL2019. It's a habit I picked up from the military.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk


In speaking the date in the states, does the day always/usually proceed the month's name, for example we always hear the '4th of July'. Up here, Canada, i'm going to say at least the way i generally hear it is month before day so we'd refer to July 4th.

Being in Canada we're swamped with both the American and British arrangements so constant confusion.

Date labelling for May expiry dates in my cupboards and fridge is always MA which gives pause when you see it on something in March/April - MA, March/May?

dave
 
I say the Fourth of July, due to the holiday, but today would be May 15th. I never really thought about why, it just is.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
There is an older, out-of-date British system, which has the added fun of using lower-case Roman numerals. 4.vii.2019.
 
TMK month-day-year was always used in Britain (check old newspapers). It's only relatively recently that (the more sensible IMO) day-month-year format has come into use. That ties in nicely with the rest of Europe, along with the metric system.

You took the old Imperial System with you and kept it. In Britain we updated apart from YMMV where (although we use the metric system to measure everything) we still use miles for signposted road distances, and speed limits.

upload_2019-5-16_8-22-14.png
 
Drives me nuts when I see "two digit, two digit, two digit" as a means of expressing a date. Okay, if the "day" digits happen to be for the latter half of the month, then at least the "day" part is going to be understandable.

But ...

The one and only way to do it that does not involve any confusion is to remove confusion as follows:
  • year shown as four digits.
  • month by two letters, not digits. And yes, if you pick the right letters, you have each month represented without confusion!
  • January: JA (only "J" month with an "a" as well)
  • February: FE
  • March: MR (only "M" month with an "r")
  • April: AL (only "A" month with an "l")
  • May: MY
  • June: JN
  • July: JY
  • August: AU
  • September: SE
  • October: OC
  • November: NO
  • December: DE


Or just use 3 letters and solve all the confusion JAN FEB MAR, etc
 
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