3 ms·
BBC television programmes used to give the year in Roman numerals, in the copyright notice, I think. It has been suggested that this was to make it harder for p
by bloak 5y ago
BBC television programmes used to give the year in Roman numerals, in the copyright notice, I think. It has been suggested that this was to make it harder for people to notice how old the programme was. The same technique wouldn't work so well on a web site because you couldn't do what the BBC did and leave the Roman number on the screen for about 0.5 s so that most people don't have time to decypher it. Also the dates at the end of the last century were particularly hard to read in Roman. Here's an example. Time yourself:
© MCMXCVIII
- INTPenis 5y agoLike a true millennial I just entered it into Google and was surprised at the result.
- raverbashing 5y agoI'm not sure how true this urban legend is but it is not too hard once you get the hang of it (And dates aside, how the program ages is more important)
- LocalH 5y agoI got it in seconds because I used your context of being a date "at the end of the last century", see the VIII and immediately guess "1998"
- meigwilym 5y ago> It has been suggested that this was to make it harder for people to notice how old the programme was This is tempting but I don't know how much credence to give it. It's more to do with a style that was taken on and kept. My father still writes the month in a date using a Roman numeral, e.g. 25/XII/21. The date format has been around for many years. There weren't that many BBC programmes made, even over the course of many years. To try and convince viewers that a programme was not "old" was difficult. It might be black and white, and the quality certainly would have looked dated.
- mark-r 5y agoI think the convention started with movies.
- brimble 5y agoCommon in movies, before home media or even broadcast was A Thing, and in some other places. I don't think that's the explanation.