English vs English

[Hot Heart]

Not to be confused with hobnobbing (is that term familiar to Americans? Sounds frightfully British.)

[SomTervo]

I know it's not English as such. But I hate that UK is dd/mm/yy whereas US is mm/dd/yy.

 

Obviously if the date is higher than 12 it's not a problem but who on earth knows what date 03/04 is when you read it on the internet. It's such a stupid thing to have to think about and I bet causes more genuine problems than the Millennium Bug ever did.

 

Ugh! You are so right. The correct way is Month, day, year. There is no logic to dd/mm/yyyy. The last day of the year at 12/31/2011 has a distinct smaller to larger pattern. If you want to say 31 December 2011 then at least that makes some sense by dividing the month and the year but MM/DD/YYYY is by far the more logical and thus the correct version.

 

I totally disagree, as others have. I don't mean to bring up an old argument, but I feel strongly about this, and for some odd reason clicking on this board took me straight to the page featuring this argument in full swing

 

 

The 'date' is basically telling us what time it is.

 

If you look at your watch (as long as it's digital), it will display hours, minutes, and seconds.

 

So your digital watch displays the integers based on how long their real-life referent is. Hours are longer than minutes, which are longer than seconds. Your watch would not display hours, then seconds, then minutes- and that is exactly why MM/DD/YY doesn't make sense. It's the same argument. If someone had a watch that did minutes after seconds, it would seem totally pointless. The integer's values should go from smallest to largest- it doesn't matter what the integers themselves do.

 

'The last day of the year at 12/31/2011 has a distinct smaller to larger pattern.'

 

What difference does it make what the last day of the year is? Sure it makes a nice pattern when you put it like that, but a significant amount of the year that nice-looking pattern isn't going to mean shit.

 

Days are shorter than months, so we need to be reminded of them more. And months are shorter than years. D < M < Y. Putting it the other way round, like YY/MM/DD is fine; that's not what this debate is about.

Edited March 6, 2011 by kenshi_ryden

[peteer01]

Ugh! You are so right. The correct way is Month, day, year. There is no logic to dd/mm/yyyy. The last day of the year at 12/31/2011 has a distinct smaller to larger pattern. If you want to say 31 December 2011 then at least that makes some sense by dividing the month and the year but MM/DD/YYYY is by far the more logical and thus the correct version.

 

I totally disagree, as others have. I don't mean to bring up an old argument, but I feel strongly about this, and for some odd reason clicking on this board took me straight to the page featuring this argument in full swing

 

 

The 'date' is basically telling us what time it is.

 

If you look at your watch (as long as it's digital), it will display hours, minutes, and seconds.

 

So your digital watch displays the integers based on how long their real-life referent is. Hours are longer than minutes, which are longer than seconds. Your watch would not display hours, then seconds, then minutes- and that is exactly why MM/DD/YY doesn't make sense. It's the same argument. If someone had a watch that did minutes after seconds, it would seem totally pointless. The integer's values should go from smallest to largest- it doesn't matter what the integers themselves do.

But wait!

 

With an analog watch, the minute hand is longer than the hour hand...shouldn't we all be in outrage about how that doesn't make sense?

 

The truth is that if you live in a country where people say "February 14th", 2/14 matches the standard spoken form. If you live in a country where "the 14th of February" is the norm, 14/2 matches the standard spoken form.

 

Assuming one is right or wrong because of some arbitrary rule that matches the format you're used to is a silly way of justifying your way of doing things.

 

If you ask an American when something occurred, and they say, "February 14th, 2011" and they write that date as 2/14/11, that format makes sense.

 

If you ask a Brit when something occurred and they say, "The 14th of February, 2011" and they write that date as 14/2/11, that format makes sense.

 

If there was a country were people always told the time as "26 past 11", what would be unusual about a digital clock reading 26:11 in that country? That we agree on a standard format for time and digital clocks doesn't mean there has to be a universal standard format for dates, spoken or written.

 

My issue with the varying formats is that too often it's not clear what format is being used. If I buy a can that says, "Best used by: 10/11/12" and there's nothing else, there's a problem. If a can says, "Best used by (DDMMYY): 101112", I could care less what the format is, because I have enough information to understand the important data.

 

I personally prefer YYYYMMDD (or YYMMDD for anything dealing only with post Y2K numbers) because it's both clear and lists chronologically when sorted alphabetically, but as long as the underlying information is clear to whoever's reading it, that as close to the "right" way as you're going to get.

Edited March 7, 2011 by peteer01

[Little Pirate]

My friend was totally amazing. Who wouldn't find a Japanese girl with an English accent adorable? I miss her so much... I'm gonna go raid England for her.

[SomTervo]

But wait!

 

 

With an analog watch, the minute hand is longer than the hour hand...shouldn't we all be in outrage about how that doesn't make sense?

 

The truth is that if you live in a country where people say "February 14th", 2/14 matches the standard spoken form. If you live in a country where "the 14th of February" is the norm, 14/2 matches the standard spoken form.

 

Assuming one is right or wrong because of some arbitrary rule that matches the format you're used to is a silly way of justifying your way of doing things.

 

If you ask an American when something occurred, and they say, "February 14th, 2011" and they write that date as 2/14/11, that format makes sense.

 

If you ask a Brit when something occurred and they say, "The 14th of February, 2011" and they write that date as 14/2/11, that format makes sense.

 

If there was a country were people always told the time as "26 past 11", what would be unusual about a digital clock reading 26:11 in that country? That we agree on a standard format for time and digital clocks doesn't mean there has to be a universal standard format for dates, spoken or written.

 

 

 

But this is all what people say, not what the values are for empirical matters such as referent dates and times. I can say "it's March the 7th, 2011", or, "it's the 7th of March, 2011"- that doesn't matter, it's simply putting the data into a sentence, organising it differently and putting it on display. Sure, that's arbitrary and silly to argue about, because it's just some sentences, but that's not what I'm talking about.

 

I'm talking about what is displayed in data, on your computer, your watch, etc., for categorizing things. Pure numbers. Which is what you're sending out if you put a date in a XX/YY/ZZ format. Pure numbers- not what you'd say in casual conversation. In that sense, the categories YY, MM, and DD, should go from smallest to largest, or largest to smallest. Not medium, to smallest, to largest, which is what MM/DD/YY is. It's like if you decided to write "1, 2, 3" as "1, 3, 2" for no reason (though that's obviously a pretty ridiculous example.)

 

My friend was totally amazing. Who wouldn't find a Japanese girl with an English accent adorable? I miss her so much... I'm gonna go raid England for her.

 

A friend of mine has an ex-girlfriend who was of Japanese descent, but was from Northern Ireland. Probably the cutest combo of look/accent I've ever seen.

Edited March 7, 2011 by kenshi_ryden

[peteer01]

I'm talking about what is displayed in data, on your computer, your watch, etc., for categorizing things. Pure numbers. Which is what you're sending out if you put a date in a XX/YY/ZZ format. Pure numbers- not what you'd say in casual conversation. In that sense, the categories YY, MM, and DD, should go from smallest to largest, or largest to smallest. Not medium, to smallest, to largest, which is what MM/DD/YY is. It's like if you decided to write "1, 2, 3" as "1, 3, 2" for no reason (though that's obviously a pretty ridiculous example.)

If we wanted to follow that logic, we should all use YY/MM/DD, just like we use HH:MM:SS. But we're not computers, and English is hardly the most logical or consistent language. (nor are humans the always logical or consistent) YYYYMMDDHHMMSS would be the format that would make the most sense...but MM/DD is how several hundred million English speakers say the date, and it follows that when "February" followed by "14th" are the order they pop into their head, 2/14 is the way they write that data down.

 

Suggesting that people should think in one order and write the numbers in another seems very unintuitive. Writing dates and times in the same order that we're used to saying them isn't something that needs to be changed.

 

A universal format would be nice, even if just for things like expiration dates, and I'd be all for food manufacturers and distributors agreeing on one...but that decision isn't something that should be made because one way is "right" or another way is "wrong".

Edited March 7, 2011 by peteer01

[SomTervo]

I'm talking about what is displayed in data, on your computer, your watch, etc., for categorizing things. Pure numbers. Which is what you're sending out if you put a date in a XX/YY/ZZ format. Pure numbers- not what you'd say in casual conversation. In that sense, the categories YY, MM, and DD, should go from smallest to largest, or largest to smallest. Not medium, to smallest, to largest, which is what MM/DD/YY is. It's like if you decided to write "1, 2, 3" as "1, 3, 2" for no reason (though that's obviously a pretty ridiculous example.)

If we wanted to follow that logic, we should all use YY/MM/DD, just like we use HH:MM:SS. But we're not computers, and English is hardly the most logical or consistent language. (nor are humans the always logical or consistent) YYYYMMDDHHMMSS would be the format that would make the most sense...but MM/DD is how several hundred million English speakers say the date, and it follows that when "February" followed by "14th" are the order they pop into their head, 2/14 is the way they write that data down.

 

Suggesting that people should think in one order and write the numbers in another seems very unintuitive. Writing dates and times in the same order that we're used to saying them isn't something that needs to be changed.

 

A universal format would be nice, even if just for things like expiration dates, and I'd be all for food manufacturers and distributors agreeing on one...but that decision isn't something that should be made because one way is "right" or another way is "wrong".

 

Yeah, that's true, and I agree with it. When we're speaking informally it doesn't matter what order you use- I just mean on anything that should have scientific accuracy, like machines or use-by dates, or dates in general, it should be a logical manner, the most logical being YY/MM/DD, or a variant. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just logical, in an informatics sense. Smallest value to largest vaue, or vice versa, obviously.

 

Also I'm pretty sure multiple billions of people use the DD/MM/YY method, so I think that's pretty standardised and is the most widespread version throughout Humanity. Just like English is the most widespread language, but it's even more widespread than that. A few people have said that on here already, don't hold me to a reference!

Edited March 7, 2011 by kenshi_ryden

[peteer01]

Also I'm pretty sure multiple billions of people use the DD/MM/YY method, so I think that's pretty standardised and is the most widespread version throughout Humanity. Just like English is the most widespread language, but it's even more widespread than that. A few people have said that on here already, don't hold me to a reference!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country

Roughly 2 billion people are used to Month Day, either preceded or followed by the year. Roughly 3.5 billion people are used to Day Month, although I'm not sure how accurate that is, as Australia is listed as DMY, and my coworker tells me that's not the case. (That may be due in part to him living in Japan, perhaps, like English, which has the occasional usage of December 7, 1941 ("December the seventh, nineteen forty-one") Australia also has all-numeric dates invariably ordered dd/mm/yyyy...he could be wrong about mm/dd/yyyy, but like I said, he says otherwise.

 

Go, go, Japan and China...those guys have the YMD thing already figured out.

Edited March 7, 2011 by peteer01

[SomTervo]

Also I'm pretty sure multiple billions of people use the DD/MM/YY method, so I think that's pretty standardised and is the most widespread version throughout Humanity. Just like English is the most widespread language, but it's even more widespread than that. A few people have said that on here already, don't hold me to a reference!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country

Roughly 2 billion people are used to Month Day, either preceded or followed by the year. Roughly 3.5 billion people are used to Day Month, although I'm not sure how accurate that is, as Australia is listed as DMY, and my coworker tells me that's not the case. (That may be due in part to him living in Japan, perhaps, like English, which has the occasional usage of December 7, 1941 ("December the seventh, nineteen forty-one") Australia also has all-numeric dates invariably ordered dd/mm/yyyy...he could be wrong about mm/dd/yyyy, but like I said, he says otherwise.

 

Go, go, Japan and China...those guys have the YMD thing already figured out.

 

Good catch! We should try our hardest to propagate the YMD system.

[WTF]

 

 

I could care less what the format is, because I have enough information to understand the important data.

 

 

Gah! You know that probably should head off to a pet peeve section. But really...

 

As for the date formats argued by both of you, I don't think you can argue that MDY and YMD are the same technically since the one used in the US Is middle endian as opposed to big endian used by the supposedly agreed international system and of course the little Endian system used by most parts of the world (primarily former British colonies when you think about it)

Big Endian - 1.5B, Middle Endian .2B and Little Endian 3.2B.

However the logic is correct when it comes to how it originated was based on how it was said. No one technically would say the little endian system except for a device in the English language, which is why the rate of adoption is higher in non-English speaking countries primarily. As far as I know, Australia uses the the DDMMYYYY just like most former British Colonies. The reason why Philippines uses both is because they were at one point an imperialist colony of the US and Saudi Arabia because of several gated oil communities which pretty much had quite a lot of influence in the past (unlike the others where the US influence was felt more recently only and prior to that they were just former British controlled territories despite having local rulers).

 

But we do (human society) suck for adopting international standards. People should be using kilometres, kilogram, and the like it should be the SI system and not the MKS or the FPS but right now we've started to use an amalgam of rubbish in the UK and the US, The UK hasn't gotten rid of the distance measurements for the roads but have for most others. The US on the other hand still uses the old Pound based weight system which is evident especially when you start to follow recipes. For some odd reason when it comes to personal health the UK uses both the FPS and MKS systems though the MKS by proxy of being similar to the SI system is more commonly 'officially' used.

 

 

 

[deanb]

A universal format would be nice, even if just for things like expiration dates, and I'd be all for food manufacturers and distributors agreeing on one...but that decision isn't something that should be made because one way is "right" or another way is "wrong".

 

Well when one format is only used by one n a half countries I have a feeling that'd make things much simpler. Then it's a case of east-asia versus the west. Though as we've discussed in the past, they're both exactly the same system, it just happens to be that in regular writing we write backwards to each other.

[Battra92]

My friend was totally amazing. Who wouldn't find a Japanese girl with an English accent adorable? I miss her so much... I'm gonna go raid England for her.

 

I could listen to Indian girls speaking the UK Indian-English (think the girl from Royal Pains) all day and all night.

[TheMightyEthan]

December 7, 1941 ("December the seventh, nineteen forty-one")

This is another regional thing, but "December the seventh" bothers me a lot, around here people just say "December seventh".

[TheFlyingGerbil]

December 7, 1941 ("December the seventh, nineteen forty-one")

This is another regional thing, but "December the seventh" bothers me a lot, around here people just say "December seventh".

 

I think it's quite American to remove extraneous words from sentences. eg US: We do our weekly food shop Tuesdays. UK: we do our weekly food shop every tuesday/ we do our weekly food shop on Tuesdays.

[Hot Heart]

Couldn't see this but for something that's considered an easy task some people would say it's a 'doddle'.

 

Alternatives might be 'a piece of cake' or 'easy peasy' (do you guys know that one?)

 

'Go on, it'll be easy peasy lemon squeezy'

'No, it won't. It will be difficult difficult lemon difficult'

 

0:10 here:

Edited March 9, 2011 by Hot Heart

[deanb]

Never heard Lemon Difficult before.

[TheMightyEthan]

We have "piece of cake" and "easy peasy" (or the longer "easy peasy lemon squeezy"), but I've never heard "doddle" before.

 

We also say "easy as pie", which just the other day I was commenting to my fiancee about how it doesn't make any goddamned sense.

[Hot Heart]

Never heard Lemon Difficult before.

 

 

We have "piece of cake" and "easy peasy" (or the longer "easy peasy lemon squeezy"), but I've never heard "doddle" before.

 

Yeah, I kinda meant to say 'doddle' seems a bit more old-fashioned, while the others see more usage.

Edited March 9, 2011 by Hot Heart

[Mr W Phallus]

We also say "easy as pie", which just the other day I was commenting to my fiancee about how it doesn't make any goddamned sense.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/as-easy-as-pie.html

 

Seems credible.

[Hot Heart]

Also, have you guys ever tried to walk a cake? That is NOT EASY!

 

(Yes, I know the true origins of the term)

[Hot Heart]

Oh, I noticed this while writing a script. 'Chaps' are those things you'd see a cowboy wearing; whereas, over here, it's more readily used as an informal term for friends or 'buddies', eg. Hello, old chap!

 

That has to be a British thing. It's so fusty-sounding.

 

(In case you were wondering, I was using the American term in what I was writing. )

Edited March 9, 2011 by Hot Heart

[Mr W Phallus]

Of course a lot of these terms sound fusty because they are somewhat outdated and rarely used these days.

[Hot Heart]

i.e. They're British.

 

I still hear them used fairly regularly (but not usually by my generation).

Edited March 9, 2011 by Hot Heart

[WTF]

Since this is essentially an English vs English thread I figured the old David Mitchell Soapbox podcast/webisode. would fit right in.

 

 

 

edited to add video

Edited March 9, 2011 by WTF

[Mr W Phallus]

i.e. They're British.

 

I still hear them used fairly regularly (but not usually by my generation).

Well I'd say chaps is a more southern thing (I'm thinking the classic 'tally-ho chaps' WWII RAF pilot) which would explain why I don't hear it much. Doddle I do hear every now and then.