6 ms·
This answer misses how several different universal times already existed at the time, which use abbreviations UT0, UT1, etc. UTC was a logical abbreviation for
by Deukhoofd 7y ago
This answer misses how several different universal times already existed at the time, which use abbreviations UT0, UT1, etc. UTC was a logical abbreviation for this one, considering it follows the same style, and the desire to find a good compromise between the French and the English speakers.
- Mobius01 7y agoI wonder why a Latin name wasn’t appropriate.
- Nasrudith 7y agoI think the real reason was because we were confident about surpassing Rome and our own modern empires by the 1970s. There was a certain ammount of "looking back to the peaks and we are but a shadow of the greats" meme well beyond they realized they surpassdd the Roman Empire with the use of the fallen in the west Roman empire and the use of Latin (amusingly paying no regards to the Eastern Roman empire aka Byzantium). Now it is used for taxonomies still but the real reason for that is "Do you want to rename every system of classification and have to deal with two systems and names for thousands instead and avoid confusion in a vast body of work?". A resounding no and shudder would be the answer even if we had an undeniably "better" universal language for the purpose that didn't have any "politics" to it.
- excalibur 7y ago> A resounding no and shudder would be the answer even if we had an undeniably "better" universal language for the purpose that didn't have any "politics" to it. So not JavaScript?
- mywittyname 7y agoMaybe because not that many (American) people learn Latin anymore.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mhh__ 7y agoThat's the point, no? (No preference to a given nation)
- dooglius 7y agoMere use of the Latin alphabet gives a preference to some nations...
- mhh__ 7y agoSome is not one, though. Especially in the case of large values of "some"
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoConspiracy theorists would have a fun time with an official language of the Vatican being selected for the purpose of anything as basic and universal as time itself, even if just for a label.
- mywittyname 7y agoWell, my comment was more eluding to the fact that, until very recently, many Americans learned Latin as part of their primary school education. It was requisite knowledge for university.
- FabHK 7y ago(Secondary school, presumably)
- gamblor956 7y agoThis has not been true in America since at least before WWII and the GI Bill. Latin was never a part of the standard primary school curriculum.
- rob74 7y agoIt might as well be the acronym for a Latin name, "Universalis Tempus Coordinatus" or something like that...
- skywhopper 7y agoI mean, it basically is. The English, French, and Latin words are all very similar. I'm not going to embarrass myself with improper Latin declensions, but suffice it to say that "UTC" still works as a compromise initialism if you want to say it in Latin as well.
- joshklein 7y agoIn French, most adjectives follow the noun they describe (while adjectives precede nouns in English), so the primary compromise is not naming per se, but specifically abbreviating. It’s a good compromise and a compromise good.
- K0SM0S 7y agoNot exactly. In French, adjectives can both precede or follow the noun. It's stylistic more than grammatical in many cases, and depends on how the sentence is constructed. Nuances (e.g. proper versus figurative meaning) can be elegantly conveyed by switching the adjective. Examples: "Un homme grand" means 'a tall man', but "un grand homme" is more commonly 'a great man' (although it could also mean tall, depending on context or sophistication). "Une voiture bleue" is the only correct way to say 'a blue car' ("une bleue voiture" would be grammatically wrong). "Un petit homme noir" ('a short black man') is also correct, but "un noir homme petit" is absolutely wrong, as any other variation... Generally, when both orders are allowed, emphasis is put on whichever comes first —the noun or its adjectives. Unless the sentence ends there, in which case the last word obviously resonates more. Don't ask me why... It's logically as weird to me as it may seem to you. I only know from practice (like most French people I suspect) and I'm generally bad at explaining grammar (again like most, for it's really complicated). There's probably some rule somewhere about that, with three dozen exceptions, as usual in French. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- bradknowles 7y agoDid you ask L’Académie française? They know everything. Just ask them.
- United857 7y agoInterestingly that's the approach Switzerland took by adopting "CH" as its country code/abbreviation: Confoederatio Helvetica in Latin. This was to avoid giving the appearance of favoring any of its four official languages (It would otherwise be "SE" in German, "CS" in French/Italian/Romanish).
- iooi 7y agoThanks for sharing, that's very interesting. Does that decision have anything to do with Switzerland's reputation for neutrality?
- gumby 7y agoIt's not a reputation but an actual policy. It's hard to untangle but the policy has more to being surrounded by other states (no ocean) and having big walls around it already, and being too small for geopolitical strength. The country was last invaded in the napoleonic wars.
- somacert 7y agoMy understanding of Swiss neutrality (simplistic and very poor) is that the swiss mercenaries were too good and after they were finally defeated a ban on fielding mercenary companies was enforced and this lead naturally to the neutral stance Switzerland takes today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries Except the pope, being the pope got to keep his.
- WalterBright 7y agoIndia's official language is English. I recall a journalist asking an Indian official isn't that a sign of British oppression? The official replied that India is home to many native languages, and to avoid favoritism a foreign language was chosen, and since the bureaucracy was already familiar with English that was the logical choice.
- _delirium 7y agoWell, English is co-official with Hindi. Originally, Hindi was even supposed to be the only official language at a national level (states can have their own official languages). The Indian Constitution of 1950 declared Hindi as the sole official language, with English being used only temporarily for a 15-year transitional period. A number of politicians who pushed for this clause did see phasing out English as part of the decolonization process. But it's true that English usage alongside Hindi as co-official has been extended indefinitely due to non-Hindi-speaking regions preferring to use English over Hindi when dealing with the central government. The Constitution was amended in 1967 to remove the phase-out period, partly in response to some riots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Hindi_agitations_of_Tamil_Nadu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Hindi_agitations_of_Tamil...
- FabHK 7y agoFWIW, those are still in use. Here's the (rather interesting) relationship: * UT1 is really not a time, but an angular measurement - it measures the rotation of the earth. In UT1, a day (= 1 rotation) has 86400 seconds (= 1 rotation), but those seconds are not SI seconds. * TAI is time since some fixed epoch, in SI seconds. In TAI, a day doesn't really exist as a primitive concept, but a day (=1 rotation) has a variable number of seconds, and those seconds are SI seconds. TAI and UT1 diverge over time, continuously (due to earth's rotational speed variations). * UTC is sort of an amalgamation of them: it uses SI seconds (like TAI), but occasionally jumps a second to keep close to UT1. In UTC, a day has 86400 seconds, or 86399 or 86401, and those seconds are SI seconds. UTC and TAI diverge, and their difference is piecewise constant with occasional jumps. UTC and UT1 diverge, but at most a second continuously, and then with occasional jumps come together again.
- gumby 7y agoThis nicely recapitulates phylogeny: in the origin of Babylonian timekeeping (we all now use a system based on that), hours were not of a fixed length; there were twelve of them between dawn and dusk and twelve more between dusk and dawn. Minutes (as can be see from their clearly Latin name, "tiny") and the second division of them (seconds) are brand new and AFAIK have always been of fixed length, a consequence of mechanical timekeeping.