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We all know that the metric system is superior, but...
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ZeroGravity
Member
MM/DD/YY
Saying September 26th sounds far less awkward than 26th of September, not to mention it removes the unnecessary 'of'.
Saying September 26th sounds far less awkward than 26th of September, not to mention it removes the unnecessary 'of'.
I'll try, this is how I think of it.
mmddyyyy is in terms of relevant information.
Year is obviously last because it is the quantity that changes the slowest, you don't need to be updated on what year it is all the time.
Month is first because it gives you a good starting foundation for which to reference the day.
There are only 12 months, while there can be upwards of 30 days. So, it's better to start off by knnowing the month than it is by knowing the day. The month number is a larger chunk of information.
Kind of like how when you are putting together a jigsaw puzzle, you start by constructing the frame.
Ultimately you read all 8 numbers in half a second so it really doesn't matter either way. But I wouldn't call mmddyyyy illogical. Makes perfect sense to me, just can't explain it very well.
mmddyyyy is in terms of relevant information.
Year is obviously last because it is the quantity that changes the slowest, you don't need to be updated on what year it is all the time.
Month is first because it gives you a good starting foundation for which to reference the day.
There are only 12 months, while there can be upwards of 30 days. So, it's better to start off by knnowing the month than it is by knowing the day. The month number is a larger chunk of information.
Kind of like how when you are putting together a jigsaw puzzle, you start by constructing the frame.
Ultimately you read all 8 numbers in half a second so it really doesn't matter either way. But I wouldn't call mmddyyyy illogical. Makes perfect sense to me, just can't explain it very well.
Fernando Rocker
Banned
DD MM YYYY - Logical ascending order.
YYYY MM DD - Logical descending order.
MM DD YYYY - Illogical confusing mess.
YYYY MM DD - Logical descending order.
MM DD YYYY - Illogical confusing mess.
EskimoJoe said:
That's going from the smallest to the biggest range. Was it YYMMDD in from 1-11AD and then MMYYDD from 13-27AD?
ZeroGravity said:
26th September is equally acceptable. It sounds awkward in the same fashion it sounds awkward when you use fanny to refer to butts. Because you've been using it wrong for too long to realize.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Depends on the language i'm using, or how formal I want to sound.DoctorWho said:
NotebookJ2 said:
But of course that's what it is.
From a linguistics perspective, there's no particular reason to use a strict scalar order to refer to dates and time when the goal is to communicate the significance of time. In terms of signifying dates, the date alone is often pointless due to the frequency of recurrence and so the month is almost always necessary for clarification, which when extended the other way makes noting the year typically unnecessary, which is why it's noted last. The "logic" is based around common usage, not some arbitrary scale.
There's no particular reason why either noting the date nor month first is any more wrong than the other. Any insistence to the contrary usually results from the need for mental masturbation and not actually expending brain cells to think about why people use vernacular the way they do. But heaven forbids we think about something before taking a viewpoint, it's such a typically dumb Amer...oh wait.
D
Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
YY/MM/DD makes the most sense to me.
Fernando Rocker
Banned
Log4Girlz said:
You read the thread.
NotebookJ2
Member
I'm must be the only person who has no trouble discerning dates of any format.
This must be some conspiracy.
Yes, that's right. I'm the only one who can stop this entire fight! Ha ha...
You'll never get me! I'll never fall into your system of false superiority!
The truth will win out one day...
I will destroy this system and everyone will be free! Free I tell you!
See, the problem I have with this entire debate is that in all of my years of being on the internet, I have never seen this topic used for anything more than America-bashing. Now I'm hardly the one person to defend America or whatever but good lord if you're going to claim superiority over something there are other, much better areas to do it.
I've never seen anything good come out of this entire debate.
This must be some conspiracy.
Yes, that's right. I'm the only one who can stop this entire fight! Ha ha...
You'll never get me! I'll never fall into your system of false superiority!
The truth will win out one day...
I will destroy this system and everyone will be free! Free I tell you!
See, the problem I have with this entire debate is that in all of my years of being on the internet, I have never seen this topic used for anything more than America-bashing. Now I'm hardly the one person to defend America or whatever but good lord if you're going to claim superiority over something there are other, much better areas to do it.
I've never seen anything good come out of this entire debate.
i work for a british company acquired by an american one. i prevent confusion by writing the month as a word.
I'll admit i'm not a fan of dd/yy. The day is irrelevant until you here the month. every time someone says something dd/mm/yy. I always have to ask the dd again because im waiting for the month to come so i can narrow down what they're talking about.
I'll admit i'm not a fan of dd/yy. The day is irrelevant until you here the month. every time someone says something dd/mm/yy. I always have to ask the dd again because im waiting for the month to come so i can narrow down what they're talking about.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
NotebookJ2 said:
then you must provide a new topic of discussion for these fine people.
Fernando Rocker said:
Yep. The order of representing dates is incredibly unimportant. I believe America chose the system it was comfortable with arbitrarily and we function absolutely fine with it, because ultimately it doesn't matter. Its like the ground floor, 1st floor thing...American elevators have a star on the 1st floor to indicate its really just the ground floor IIRC.
lupinko said:
japanese write it this way 23年9月26日
unfortunately they like to use the imperial calender rather than the gregorian calender. It sucks. you'll read about something in year 18, so you're like 'uuuuh, ok that was 23-18=5 years ago so thats 2011-5=2006.' blah
MM/DD/YYYY may introduce confusion, but it doesn't come out of nowhere - It reflects the way much of the English-speaking world will often pronounce a specific date, I.E. "Month Xth."
But yeah, totally arbitrary and not worth getting in a huff about. This concerns me about as much as the people who think pi is "wrong" and want to replace it with a new constant, tau, which is equal to... 2 pi. Yes, using pi is somewhat less intuitive than using tau to some people, but it's a mental adjustment that takes a fraction of a second and shouldn't be a serious concern to anyone.
But yeah, totally arbitrary and not worth getting in a huff about. This concerns me about as much as the people who think pi is "wrong" and want to replace it with a new constant, tau, which is equal to... 2 pi. Yes, using pi is somewhat less intuitive than using tau to some people, but it's a mental adjustment that takes a fraction of a second and shouldn't be a serious concern to anyone.
electroshockwave
Member
I always find it funny when Americans use the "how do you say it" argument since they seem quite happy with saying the 4th of July instead of July 4th. And what if the same argument was applied to the time? If I say that 5:35 is "twenty-five to six" should I write it as
-25:6 or something?
-25:6 or something?
crazygambit
Member
Kurtofan said:
Actually that's an American thing as well. Here we say the street first, then the number.
So I guess it should be either dd/mm/yyyy and number, street or mm/dd/yyyy and street, number. So essentially everyone is a hipocrite and no one gets it right.
Harry Dresden
Member
It is a direct notation of how we format the date in casual conversation.
We don't separate the day and month with a preposition during normal conversation.
26th of September - why is that 'of' needed when you can simply say September 26th.
When used in full we put a comma between the date and year.
September 26th, 2011
I personally, find the of pointless. And its bad composition to use pointless words.
We don't separate the day and month with a preposition during normal conversation.
26th of September - why is that 'of' needed when you can simply say September 26th.
When used in full we put a comma between the date and year.
September 26th, 2011
I personally, find the of pointless. And its bad composition to use pointless words.
scar tissue
Banned
In some other languages, such as german, you say "three-and-fourty" for 43, does that mean we should write it the same way we pronounce it, i.e. 340?DoctorWho said:
Of course not, how you say stuff with numbers has nothing to do with how you write it.
Also, you can say twenty-sixth of september, two-thousand eleven. Just like any sensible person would write it.
Harry Dresden
Member
Dead Man said:
Actually, grammatically that's not valid.
You need the preposition to introduce the noun. Otherwise its bad grammar.
crazygambit
Member
nomster said:
Exactly. In my country we say Fakestreet 123 AND use DD/MM/YYYY which doesn't make any sense IMO. Americans do the exact opposite which also doesn't make much sense.
It is just as valid, but *GASP* less common in America. That almost... Lines up with Americans' use of DD/MM/YYYY.Dead Man said:
This thread really, really reminds me of people in math/science classes who don't want to admit when something is totally arbitrary and take great pride in wasting class time complaining about how one form of notation is intuitively "wrong" when it makes no difference in practice.
snoopeasystreet
Member
YYYYMMDD is the correct way. It's far easier for sorting.
Hitokage said:
No it isn't. With YYYYMMDD you have an order. It's the most significant item, followed by the next, all the way down to the smallest. This is common for pretty much all representation of data in any other context. When you flip it to DDMMYYYY you are reversing the items but still keeping the order. Messing shit around doesn't count as being the same. The only way your argument would be valid if the US used YYYY/MM/DD as their standard format and shortened it to MM/DD for convenience.
Kinyou said:
Don't get me started. Military time ftw.
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
electroshockwave said:
Thank you. I love you yanks, but when it comes to dates you guys a fucked in the head.
OgTheClever
Member
Ooh new pointless debate: maths vs math!Orayn said:
D
Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
maths: mathematics
math: arithmetic
it made sense to me as a ten year-old, although upon closer inspection this doesn't make much sense.
math: arithmetic
it made sense to me as a ten year-old, although upon closer inspection this doesn't make much sense.
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