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#1
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Pi Day and dates (A bit OT)
Being English I spent ages wondering why yesterday was Pi day. This
morning it suddenly occured to me that yesterday was 3/14 in American notation. In the UK and most other places it was 14/3. You use mm/dd/yy, we use dd/mm/yy The next questions that came to mind were these: Has the American system always been that way? If not when did it start? Or, was the UK date system in the American form once? Any references? Thanks Roger |
#2
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Pi Day and dates (A bit OT)
Roger Steer wrote:
Being English I spent ages wondering why yesterday was Pi day. This morning it suddenly occured to me that yesterday was 3/14 in American notation. In the UK and most other places it was 14/3. You use mm/dd/yy, we use dd/mm/yy Sorry for not clarifying that in the original. Must admit I thought of Chris Marriot for a nanosecond -- a fellow Englishman, who hated the US date notation and frequently jumped on anyone who dared to defend it here. That and any ambiguous currency issues on Usenet, but I digress. Has the American system always been that way? No. In fact, on the back of the Declaration of Independence is the notation "4th July 1776" If not when did it start? I'm sure someone knows, I sure don't, but the mmddyyyy notation has been around and taught in the US school system for at least several generations. "Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and ..." -FDR Or, was the UK date system in the American form once? Probably not. Any references? This might be worth a read: http://naggum.no/lugm-time.html Paul S.!? -- -John Steinberg email: lid |
#3
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Pi Day and dates (A bit OT)
That's quite an interesting point about the Declaration of
Independence, but in the UK people write 14 March 2006, March 14 2006, quite interchangeably. In fact, I would say that the second was the more common. However, they would always write 14/3/06 whatever - The long form having no bearing on the short form. Roger |
#4
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Pi Day and dates (A bit OT)
On Wed, 15 Mar 2006 07:29:13 -0500, John Steinberg
wrote: No. In fact, on the back of the Declaration of Independence is the notation "4th July 1776" Indeed, that remains a very common way of writing dates in the U.S. (except that the ordinal is rarely used). I get documents all the time dated in the format 15 March 2006. My wife, who is English, still tends to write dates in the form March 15th, 2006, which is how she learned in school. Of course, it doesn't really matter how you write a date if you spell out the month. The problem comes when you only use numbers, and the American system is darn poor. I encourage the kids at the school here to use 2006.03.15, and they are starting to do so. IMO that is the best notation for several reasons (making sure to use a 4-digit year and to include leading zeros). The system is too large to change from the top; best to just start sending people out into it using a better method. Maybe that will eventually influence change. _________________________________________________ Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com |
#5
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Pi Day and dates (A bit OT)
On 2006-03-15, Roger Steer wrote:
That's quite an interesting point about the Declaration of Independence, but in the UK people write 14 March 2006, March 14 2006, quite interchangeably. In fact, I would say that the second was the more common. However, they would always write 14/3/06 whatever - The long form having no bearing on the short form. In which case 22/7 would be Pi Day. Astronomers should do 2006/3/15. -- The night is just the shadow of the Earth. |
#6
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Pi Day and dates (A bit OT)
Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Wed, 15 Mar 2006 07:29:13 -0500, John Steinberg wrote: No. In fact, on the back of the Declaration of Independence is the notation "4th July 1776" Indeed, that remains a very common way of writing dates in the U.S. (except that the ordinal is rarely used). I get documents all the time dated in the format 15 March 2006. My wife, who is English, still tends to write dates in the form March 15th, 2006, which is how she learned in school. Of course, it doesn't really matter how you write a date if you spell out the month. The problem comes when you only use numbers, and the American system is darn poor. It is particularly confusing for genealogists when some index data for births, deaths and marriages have been transposed in a US database like IGI for some values MM/DD vs DD/MM where DD,MM = 12. Extremely confusing as the system now renders what it believes to be the month as three letter month names. I presume they swapped round all the dates containing obviously non-physical months where MM12. I encourage the kids at the school here to use 2006.03.15, and they are starting to do so. IMO that is the best notation for several reasons (making sure to use a 4-digit year and to include leading zeros). IBM date format from the good old mainframe days. It makes sorting by date a lot simpler when YYYYMMDD is naturally well ordered. Regards, Martin Brown |
#7
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Pi Day and dates (A bit OT)
On Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:37:14 -0500, John Steinberg
wrote: Are these legal documents or science papers? Both. Basically, I just think that there is no standard- just common ways of doing things. So you can see anything. My checks are all dated MM/DD/YYYY and that's how my accounting programs record dates. On your computer, the dates are almost certainly rendered according to rules set up by the OS. Tell your computer you are in Europe, and most likely your accounting program will display dates differently. It is very bad form for any program to manage date formats internally. But there is some ambiguity when the numbers don't immediately suggest whether they are a month or a date, no? And then when you go 06.03.07, my brain seizes like a small block Chevy with no oil. There will always be the possibility of misunderstanding when writing dates as numbers. But at least the yyyy.mm.dd format is logical, and writing the year as four digits defines the direction to read it. _________________________________________________ Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com |
#8
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Pi Day and dates (A bit OT)
When I was in the US Navy during the 50's, the military format for
dates was dd/month/year (9 March 1955). All my forms, etc., are dated in that format..... During the 35 years I was an educator, we taught month/dd/year (March 9, 1955..... As a genealogist, the preferred format seems to be dd/mon/year (9 Mar 1955)..... Most of my bills are dated mm/dd/yr (9/3/55)..... As far as I know, except for the military, there is no _one_ "standard" acceptable format. I generally use the military format except for genealogical forms and communication. Wayne Howell Photon Phlats Observatory Port Townsend, WA |
#9
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Pi Day and dates (A bit OT)
Roger Steer wrote:
Being English I spent ages wondering why yesterday was Pi day. This morning it suddenly occured to me that yesterday was 3/14 in American notation. In the UK and most other places it was 14/3. You use mm/dd/yy, we use dd/mm/yy Oh. Well, it needn't be American notation, you know. For the last few months, I've been writing my dates in the YYYY-MM-DD format, which in my opinion is more logical than either the American format or the English format. After all, you get all four digits of the year, and you can sort by date, which you can't do (without something like Perl) with the others. -- Brian Tung The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/ Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/ The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/ My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html (Location of these pages soon to change. Stay tuned for updates.) |
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