4 ms·

what does 17.9.1991 mean? Can I suggest people stop coming up with their novel date formatting schemes and use a standard that universally makes sense? ISO 8601

by riffic 7y ago

what does 17.9.1991 mean? Can I suggest people stop coming up with their novel date formatting schemes and use a standard that universally makes sense? ISO 8601 is worth looking at: https://xkcd.com/1179/ https://xkcd.com/1179/

mulmen 7y ago
Day month year is a common date format in much of the world. I think they should write the year as 9191 for consistency but I’m not willing to die on that hill.
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opan 7y ago
I agree, but 17 being greater than 12 and the year being 4 digits reveals the order in this case. This only works sometimes, though. Like how 14 o'clock is pretty clear, but because not everyone uses 24 hour time yet, 2 o'clock is actually ambiguous. I find a leading 0 helps, but in spoken conversation it's not so simple.
- mulmen 7y ago
  Where is fourteen-o-clock common? I've never heard 24 hour time spoken that way.
  - Symbiote 7y ago
    Not in English, but the direct translation is used in other European languages. Danish: klokken 14 German: 14 Uhr That does mean native speakers of languages like this might say "14 o'clock" when speaking English. I very occasionally use this if I need to be certain to be understood by someone who rarely speaks English, "we'll arrive at 19 o'clock". (A friend's parents in rural rest-of-Europe, for example.)
Symbiote 7y ago
It's hardly novel. This ordering goes back centuries, and is used by the majority of the world. The ISO standard is great for data exchange, but it's unlikely to change how dates are normally spoken and casually written.
- matvore 7y ago
  You're technically correct. However, to a large number of people it not only appears novel, it is ambiguous for ~40% of dates of the year with their native format (MM/DD/YYYY). Even if it's convenient for the majority, it may cause so much friction for the minority that it's not worth using anymore. My native format is mdy but I dislike it almost as much as dmy.
  - matvore 7y ago
    edit is not working. I meant my native format is mdy.
frant-hartm 7y ago
This is the most commonly used format in the world an funnily enough it is not listed as discouraged in the xkcd :-)
- mulmen 7y ago
  It's the third format from the left on the top row.
  - frant-hartm 7y ago
    No it's not. The one in the title has dots as separators and uses single digit for first 9 months.

by riffic 7y ago

mulmen 7y ago

Day month year is a common date format in much of the world. I think they should write the year as 9191 for consistency but I’m not willing to die on that hill.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

opan 7y ago

I agree, but 17 being greater than 12 and the year being 4 digits reveals the order in this case. This only works sometimes, though. Like how 14 o'clock is pretty clear, but because not everyone uses 24 hour time yet, 2 o'clock is actually ambiguous. I find a leading 0 helps, but in spoken conversation it's not so simple.

mulmen 7y ago
Where is fourteen-o-clock common? I've never heard 24 hour time spoken that way.
- Symbiote 7y ago
  Not in English, but the direct translation is used in other European languages. Danish: klokken 14 German: 14 Uhr That does mean native speakers of languages like this might say "14 o'clock" when speaking English. I very occasionally use this if I need to be certain to be understood by someone who rarely speaks English, "we'll arrive at 19 o'clock". (A friend's parents in rural rest-of-Europe, for example.)

Symbiote 7y ago

It's hardly novel. This ordering goes back centuries, and is used by the majority of the world. The ISO standard is great for data exchange, but it's unlikely to change how dates are normally spoken and casually written.

matvore 7y ago
You're technically correct. However, to a large number of people it not only appears novel, it is ambiguous for ~40% of dates of the year with their native format (MM/DD/YYYY). Even if it's convenient for the majority, it may cause so much friction for the minority that it's not worth using anymore. My native format is mdy but I dislike it almost as much as dmy.
- matvore 7y ago
  edit is not working. I meant my native format is mdy.

frant-hartm 7y ago

This is the most commonly used format in the world an funnily enough it is not listed as discouraged in the xkcd :-)

mulmen 7y ago
It's the third format from the left on the top row.
- frant-hartm 7y ago
  No it's not. The one in the title has dots as separators and uses single digit for first 9 months.