2023-08-09
2023-08-09
Ouch!
I lost about an hour of my life trying to create a historical timeline in MS Excel. Eventually learned this is impossible with dates earlier than 1900.
Three ways that people actually use. YYYY-MM-DD, DD-MM-YYYY, and MM-DD-YYYY (ew).
AFAIK no-one does YYYY-DD-MM, DD-YYYY-MM, or MM-YYYY-DD… yet. Don’t let the Americans know about these formats, they might just start using them out of spite.
YYYY-DD-MM, DD-YYYY-MM, or MM-YYYY-DD
What the actual fuck
‘hey man, what date is it today?’ ‘well it’s the 15th of 2023, August’
What, 2023-223 for the 223rd day of the year 2023? That… is oddly appealing for telling the actual progress of the year or grouping. No silly “does this group have 31, 30, 29 or 28 members”, particularly the “is this year a multiple of four, but not of 100, unless it’s also a multiple of 400?” bit with leap days.
You’ll have oddities still, no matter which way you slice it, because our orbit is mathematically imperfect, but it’s a start.
It is currently the Third of 1993, November.
TIHI.
We basically never say the sixth of November. It sounds positively ancient.
When is your independence day, again?
Anyway, in Australia (and, I suspect, other places that use DD/MM/YYYY) we use “{ordinal} of {month}” (11th of August), “{ordinal} {month}” (11th August), and “{month} {ordinal}” (August 11th) pretty much interchangeably. In writing but not in speaking, we also sometimes use “{number} {month}” (11 August). That doesn’t have any bearing on how we write it short form though, because those are different things. It’s not the defence many Americans seem to think it is of their insane method of writing the short form.
When is your independence day, again?
July 4th, why?
“Fourth of July” is the name of the holiday. It happens on “July 4th”.
“Independence Day” was a movie in the 90’s. We never say “Independence Day” around here unless the topic is Will Smith or REM.
It’s kinda tongue in cheek, but that’s how we say things in my part of the US. “Fourth of July” is spoken of exactly as if it were the name of the day, like “Thanksgiving” or “Christmas”. Just like we still refer to “Cinco de Mayo” even though we don’t speak Spanish.
Obviously it’s not really called “Fourth of July”, but nobody ever says “Nth of Month” here. And I’m kinda grateful as I like “bigger to smaller” notation. Yeah, mm/dd/yyyy sucks, but saying it that way is pretty expressive because the year rarely matters. So it’s like “Hours and minutes” or (yeah, sorry Europeans) Feet and inches. Bigger before smaller quickly expresses precise information to our caveman brains. At least to my caveman brain.
Also, the movie really wasn’t that good in retrospect, but we had some sort of fever about it because it was expensive with lots of explosions, and good music licensing.
It’s not the defence many Americans seem to think it is of their insane method of writing the short form.
I’ve never once been confused about a written date whilst in the US. Your country’s other-side-of-the-Earth flip-floppery on how it uses dates really doesn’t (and shouldn’t) impact our system, which we continue to use because it has proven effective and easy. Trying to stagnate an evolving culture/language is pointless and about as futile as trying to force a river to run backwards. If people start jumbling up how we do it here, like you say Australia does, then that will be right, too.
It is a bit of a chicken and egg question though. Because does Americans not say it that way because of the date format or is the date format because you don’t say it that way?
Because in countries using DD.MM.YY we absolutely do say 6th November, again possibly because of the date format.
Yes it is objectively weird.
When you write down “07/01/1967” are you unaware that it is unclear whether you’re referring to July 1st or January 7th?
And despite the fact that you’re writing something down for the express purpose of communicating information, and you’re choosing to shorten it’s written format to save time and space, you’re ok with either
a) just leaving it ambiguous and communicating poorly
or
b) having to write extra words to give it context, taking up more space than just writing out “July 1st, 1967”?
At a fundamental user experience level, it is nonsensical to choose the American date format when your goals are 1) communicating a date and 2) doing it shorter than writing out the words.
It’s not unclear to americans. “Objectively” is hilarious here. If it’s in the format people expect, then it’s perfectly fine in context. Sorry that US traditions don’t suit your fancy.
It’s definitely confusing in an international context, but well-estsblished conventions don’t change easily.
It’s not unclear to americans.
There are three options and Americans chose the dumbest and then defend it like there’s logic to it.
Oh wow, how on earth did I think a discussion with an American would come to this?
The ambiguity sucks, but the format itself makes perfect sense given the way americans say dates.
My fucking god. Are you really this thick? We all say dates the same.
It’s *objectively *dumb because it’s the format that results in ambiguity. Again, the point that it’s good cause Americans are used to using it is a *subjective *criteria of the format, whereas the ambiguity is an objective one.
Only the combination of formats results in ambiguity. Neither format is ambiguous on its own.
Standardization is good, and if someone were to change it should probably be the US given the apparent worldwide consensus otherwise. That doesn’t make either format good or bad on its own.
What I take issue with is people acting like the US format is some kind of bizarro nonsense when it in fact makes perfect sense in terms of matching spoken dates. That is hardly a weird basis for a format.
Each has its tradeoffs, and which set of tradeoffs is better is a subjective matter. I agree that d/m/y makes the most sense for an international standard (if not y/m/d), but to claim that the US format itself is somehow objectively bad is silly.
What I take issue with is people acting like the US format is some kind of bizarro nonsense
It objectively is, and Ive explained why numerous times.
If you don’t have an argument beyond ‘it makes sense cause we’re used to it’, then you don’t have an argument about why one is better than the other, you have a weakass dodge the conversation feelgoodism. It is the textbook definition of a subjective criteria.
Learn how to be fucking wrong gracefully. Jesus Christ.
My argument is more than just being used to it, closely matching verbal convention is useful.
No, it’s not, because even in the states you say it like three different ways and the English language is constantly changing.
And I have explained what is objectively wrong with it, it’s out of order from a numerical time length standpoint.
How is a lack of magnitude order objectively wrong? A date format is ultimately a language feature, and the US format successfully transmits the needed info just fine within its natural context.
It may seem objective from your perspective, but language is used in many more contexts than those you are familiar with.
Lmao bruh, if you don’t want to talk about time codes, don’t participate in a discussion about time codes.
My god, learn to accept that Americans can be objectively stupid sometimes instead of getting all weirdly defensive.
In Germany we say things like “we meet on the twelfth fifth” (Zwölfter Fünfter), which is the twelfth day of the fifth month. Often times the year is also shortened to only the last two digits, so it could be twelfth fifth twenty-four in dd-mm-yy format.
Of course we also use the names of the months, but sometimes we just number them.