# Date format: British English / US / Canadian / Australian / NewZealand / South African ... [writing]



## orc13

I did a search on the topic, but I just wanted a quick clarification from some British natives: on a covering letter, would you say, "from 1st June to 1st September 2006" ?  And would you prefer, for the date on the top, "4 March 2006" or "4th March 2006" ?

Thanks so much!


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## James Brandon

Either is correct but, in today's business correspondence, I would say that the tendency is to _simplify_, hence, you would tend to write, say, "6 March 2006" as opposed to "6th March 2006".


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## maxiogee

I hope you'll accept an Irishman's answer (we're "nearly British" in our usage and habits with the language).

would you say, "from 1st June to 1st September 2006"? Yes

And would you prefer, for the date on the top, "4 March 2006" or "4th March 2006"?


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## panjandrum

... I agree with James B; 6 March 2006 at the top of the letter AND in the text of the letter: ... the course will begin on 6 March 2006.

Ah...
And of course the really important thing to do is to find out the house style of the organisation you are writing from. I haven't had a chance to make the house style point for a long time


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## orc13

Thank you for your speedy replies!   And sorry about not including the Irish--we clumsy Americans tend to mix up our terms! 

So I will put "6 March 2006" at the top of the letter, but "from 1st June to 1st September 2006" in the body (as long as this doesn't seem inconsistent...?) 

Also, good point about the house style, Panjandrum.  The letter is actually for a French friend who is planning on sending it to many different employers (all in London), but I'll give her a head's up.


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## maxiogee

panjandrum said:
			
		

> I haven't had a chance to make the house style point for a long time



Well as head of _this_ house (in the temporary absence of my wife and child) the house style here is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.


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## James Brandon

Maxiogee,
We all know you are a stickler for tradition and correctness.


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## quilks

I work in an office in the UK and the style there is to write "6 March 2006" and also "From 6 March 2006 to 3 July 2007". In my opinion either 6 or 6th would be acceptable!


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## bartonig

Is there a difference between US and British date formats?


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## panjandrum

bartonig said:
			
		

> Is there a difference between US and British date formats?


Oh indeed yes. There has been discussion on this before, but the biggest difference is that US dates are mm/dd/yyyy whereas UK dates are dd/mm/yyyy.

This can have quite serious implications in a mixed-nationality workforce such as the UK NHS, which now employs many professional staff who have been trained in countries that use the US date format.


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## James Brandon

True, so that:

7/12/06, to an American, is July 12th, 2006 = 12 July 2006
7/12/06, to a Briton, is 7th December 2006 = 7 December 2006 

As a result, it is better to write the month in full or use letters, even if it is a short form (e.g.: Aug = August).

Incidentally, the British format for dates (expressed as numerals) is the same as the French one.


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## Brioche

James Brandon said:
			
		

> Incidentally, the British format for dates (expressed as numerals) is the same as the French one.


 
And everywhere else in Europe, Australia, NZ, South Africa &c, &c for that matter.

Traditional Chinese method is to write yy/mm/dd.


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## James Brandon

Brioche,
Commonwealth countries would have adopted the British system; I did not know about the Chinese system, and I was not sure Continental European countries other than France used the same way of writing dates too. (There is even more variety with postal addresses, with some countries putting the street number at the beginning of the line featuring the street's name, and others at the end - while Japan does not appear to _have_ street names at all!)


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## Saulfer

Brioche is right. 
At least Spain and Portugal (the countries I know) use the dd/mm/yyyy British system that you´re talking about.


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## a little edgy

I thought that almost the entire world used the British system (when writing in a Roman alphabet system) and that we Americans were mostly alone in using mm/dd/yyyy. Interestingly, the US government and military typically put the day first when using words: 04 September 2009 (that is, the British style of date-writing). I assume that they write mm/dd/yyyy when using only numbers in order to avoid confusion.


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## JulianStuart

The US does use the "other" format on occasion :  I recall my surprise on discovering that US customs and immigration forms for arrivals to the US use the dd/mm/yyyy format - for Date of Birth or Date of Issuance of Entry Visa.


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## tomtombp

Just for the record, we - in Hungary - use the Chinese form (yy/mm/dd).


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## pickarooney

I'm pretty sure both Sweden and South Africa use the yyy/mm/dd format too.


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## silkworm

In Romania, we use dd/mm/yy format, but or separator is "." or, rarely, "-", but never "/".

So, the 21st of April, 2010 will be: 21.04.2010 or, rarely, 21-04-2010.


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## Pedro y La Torre

The American format has always appeared very confusing to me, I wonder where it came from. 

Excluding America, I don't think I've yet visited a country which doesn't use the dd/mm/yy format.


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## Hitchhiker

I almost always see in British magazine articles the dates wriiten as "4th December 2006" rather than the military format that leaves off the "th". At least in US military the "th" is left out. I think even the British military may retain the "th" sometimes too which always struck me as a bit odd.


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## Hitchhiker

Pedro y La Torre said:


> The American format has always appeared very confusing to me, I wonder where it came from.
> 
> Excluding America, I don't think I've yet visited a country which doesn't use the dd/mm/yy format.



I have seen both orders in South Africa and Namibia. Maybe Australia and New Zealand but I'm not certain about those. Their English isn't as strict as in the UK and South Africa has picked up a lot of American English.


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## Andygc

Hitchhiker said:


> I almost always see in British magazine articles the dates wriiten as "4th December 2006" rather than the military format that leaves off the "th". At least in US military the "th" is left out. I think even the British military may retain the "th" sometimes too which always struck me as a bit odd.



Certainly not. In 27 years of service I never saw the date with "th" in it. In letters always 19 December 2009 - and no leading zero as in 09 December 2009. In a memo 19 Dec 09. On a signal message 0815Z09DEC09, because you have to state the time as well.

If you look at old British documents such as personal and business letters you will commonly see dates written as December 19th, 1885. We used to do it the same way as our former colonies. After all, people commonly say "December the nineteenth"

I suspect that the reason American immigration forms use the dd/mm/yyyy format is because there is an international agreement on the format of passport information - essential for machine-readable passports.


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## Hitchhiker

Andygc said:


> Certainly not. In 27 years of service I never saw the date with "th" in it. In letters always 19 December 2009 - and no leading zero as in 09 December 2009. In a memo 19 Dec 09. On a signal message 0815Z09DEC09, because you have to state the time as well.
> 
> If you look at old British documents such as personal and business letters you will commonly see dates written as December 19th, 1885. We used to do it the same way as our former colonies. After all, people commonly say "December the nineteenth"
> 
> I suspect that the reason American immigration forms use the dd/mm/yyyy format is because there is an international agreement on the format of passport information - essential for machine-readable passports.




Okay that makes sense. The British format of 4th December, 2006 is almost unknown in written form in America. It is almost always written as December 4, 2006 without the th. In spoken American English the th is said and both formats are known and used. "The 4th of December, 2006" or "December 4th, 2006" are both used in American spoken English. The th is almost never written in American English.


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## natkretep

This has been an evolving thing.

If you look at the letters of Jane Austen, you'll see that she uses the format *November 17, 1798*

Fairly similar later in the 19th century: you'll see Charles Dickens with the format *January 31st, 1850* - with the abbreviation for the ordinal (31st)

Moving on to the 20th century, you'll see D H Lawrence using the format *28 January 1908*, but occasionally we also see *3rd Dec 1907*

If you look at British newspapers, you'll see that the date format is often *January 19, 2010* or *January 19th, 2010* (the exception is the Guardian, I think). This is also true of newspapers in Singapore, where elsewhere you wouldn't normally see this format. My understanding is that this is for historical reasons, given that this was the norm in the 19th century. (Have a look at the newspaper archive by the British Library.)

Conclusion: the dominant American format reflects the dominant historical British format. The 'logical' one was a later development.

But, moving to more recent times. When I went to school in the 1970s, we were told to write *15th January, 1974*. By the 1980s, the format *15 January 1989* had become dominant. People's personal habits might be more resilient to change, but I think most companies that have a house style have the date in this format.


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## JulianStuart

Andygc said:


> I suspect that the reason American immigration forms use the dd/mm/yyyy format is because there is an international agreement on the format of passport information - essential for machine-readable passports.



I had the same thought initially, because it is handed out with the (optional) immigration forms shortly before landing.  But then I realized this was a (non-optional) _customs _form that even returning citizens must complete   Perhaps the links between customs and immigration functions would lead to confusion if they used both, so the international agreements prevail?


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## kalamazoo

The EU standard is actually supposed to be yyyy-mm-dd, which is the easiest to sort by, among other charms.

I wonder what Canadians do, date-wise.

It's not impossible that the US usage reflects some older English usage which has disappeared in the UK but has been retained in the US.  Sort of like the subjunctive.


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## natkretep

I've spoken to Canadians. Apparently you can find all three formats there D-M-Y, M-D-Y and Y-M-D. Let's wait for a Canadian to corroborate this.


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## kalamazoo

Well, if Jane Austen and Charles Dickens used the Month-Day-Year format then it seems pretty clear that the Americans must have gotten it originally from the English.  Then the question becomes, where did the English acquire the Day-Month-Year format?  Perhaps from the French?


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## natkretep

kalamazoo said:


> Well, if Jane Austen and Charles Dickens used the Month-Day-Year format then it seems pretty clear that the Americans must have gotten it originally from the English.  Then the question becomes, where did the English acquire the Day-Month-Year format?  Perhaps from the French?



Oh, I think the D-M-Y pattern was always also around, particularly in legal texts, where you would find things like



> the 17th day of the month of June in the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred



and this would also be found in historical legal documents in the US. This is from George Washington's proclamation for Thanksgiving, 1789:



> Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.  George Washington


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## pickarooney

I just use a long integer based on the number of elapsed seconds since the Big Bang. It's fairly foolproof, although my watch screen is as wide as my forearm is long. 



Andygc said:


> On a signal message 0815Z09DEC09, because you have to state the time as well.



I'm just curious - what's the Z for?


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## JamesM

I believe it's for "Zulu", isn't it? I grew up hearing it as "Greenwich Mean Time" and it is now often referred to as UCT (Universal Coordinated Time), but that's all subject to debate. I think Zulu time is the military name for this time "zone". The whole topic of time standards has filled many books.

Personally, I like the yyyy-mm-dd format (2010-01-20 for Jan. 20, 2010) because it sorts so nicely. :^)


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## kalamazoo

In AE, you can still use wording like "on the third day of June you need to have all your documents in order."  So I don't think natketep's examples really deal with the question of why BrE changed (apparently) to D-M-Y instead of (apparently) the older M-D-Y that is still used in the US.


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## JulianStuart

JamesM said:


> Personally, I like the yyyy-mm-dd format (2010-01-20 for Jan. 20, 2010) because it sorts so nicely. :^)



Me too!  Then you can keep going in a _consistent_ manner, with every digit representing a smaller division of time compared to the one to its left.  Any other system is quite illogical, Captain.


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## Andygc

JamesM said:


> I believe it's for "Zulu", isn't it? I grew up hearing it as "Greenwich Mean Time" and it is now often referred to as UCT (Universal Coordinated Time), but that's all subject to debate. I think Zulu time is the military name for this time "zone". The whole topic of time standards has filled many books.



ZULU (not Zulu) - international phonetic alphabet for "Z".
Time zone ZULU = UTC (not UCT - the Wikipedia entry explains the compromise with the French)
Time zone ALFA = Z+1 = British Summer Time = Western European Time
Time zone BRAVO = Z+2 etc


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## James Brandon

Interesting discussion. Standards have evolved over time and there are many ways to write the date. In ancient documents (say, in the 17th or 18th century), dates were written out "in full": "On the 3rd day of the 2nd month of 1682...". 

The fact remains that dates are ordinal numbers (= in order, i.e. chronological order) because of their very nature, hence "1st", "2nd", etc.

It is retained in speaking because it is not that complicated (although "30th" may not be that easy to pronounce...), and also it is clearer (no ambiguity: we know immediately it is a date that is referred to). 

In writing, the tendency has been towards simplification, hence the dropping of "st" and "nd" etc in business correspondence. I suspect this is linked to the widespread use of typewriters, then word-processing (urge to simplify and standardize).

It could well be that the standard British format today "date-month-year" is a relatively recent simplification, and that the standard American format is indeed derived from an earlier British standard that was common in, say, the 19th century, and has virtually disappeared since in the UK. (There are many things like this, which illustrate the colonial/British origins of America, despite what some people might like to think. The legal system in the USA is, in many ways, closer to the Anglo-Norman model of the Middle Ages than the current legal system in England, much influenced by Europe etc.) 

Last point: why ZULU for UCT? Whether Zulu or ZULU, we still do not really know why it should be ZULU in the first place, or did I miss something?


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## CanuckPete

In English Canada both formats are acceptable. The thing is to remain consistent within the same body of work. It is also wise to indicate what format you're using if you are only using numbers. For example, this: 8/11/2010 _to me_ is 8 November 2010, where as to another Anglo Canadian it is August 11, 2010. 

Legal documents in Canada are dd/mm/yyyy, and sometimes yyyy/mm/dd (which I don't like at all)

Everything else, however, is all over the place. 

I don't like th's, nd's and rd's. They are aesthetically unpleasing (to me) and clutter things up. 

8th November 2010: ugly.

8 November 2010: clean, simple and pretty. 

French Canada _always_ follows the dd mm yyyy format.


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## Mervinelus

It seems to be many references in the recent posts to the French way of writing dates here ... without any French to precisely answer to that yet, so please let me add my 'French touch' here... 

When I had been taught British English back in the 80s within the French school system (not the best way to learn English though, I can tell... Well, every single person having spent some kind of holidays can tell, doesn't he?... ), I have been told that the correct date writing was for instance *Friday, October 15th, 2010* -- and that we should pronounce it if I remember well "*Friday, the fifteenth of October, two thousand and ten*".
Since then I always used that format and was so firmly convinced it was the right and only way to do it that you can imagine how intrigued I was to find no track of it in the very first page of this thread... . Thanks to Andygc I knew page 2 that I wasn't mad...

As far as I can think of, French dates can be written these ways (note that we do not use any upper cases for days or months names):
- *(weekday* -- optional*) dd month yyyy,* e.g. *(vendredi) 15 octobre 2010* (at the top left of a pupil's or student's notebook/homework),
- "le" *dd month yyyy*, e.g.* le* *15 octobre 2010* (as a standalone at the top right of a formal letter),
- "le" or "au" or "du" *dd month yyyy* depending on the sentence context, e.g. *du 15 au 20 octobre 2010* (within any kind of text: email, book, letter, article, etc.),
- *"le" day month ("de l'année"* -- optional, old fashion*) year*, e.g. *le quinze octobre (de l'année) **deux mille dix* (in official documents like a birth certificate).

Note that we pronounce dates this latter way, i.e. we use cardinal numbers -- vs. ordinal numbers in spoken English: *"le" day month **year*, e.g. *le quinze octobre deux mille dix* [literally translated "The fifteen october ... "].

Apart from this slight digression , what really concerns this thread is that French simplified date format is *dd/mm/yy* or *dd/mm/yyyy*.

 Thus, as shown, French people always use the *DD MM YY *order.

Thus we, French people, always have a problem with dates when writing technical or business document or letters in English. We never know if we should use the *dd/mm/yy* format or the *mm/dd/yy* format. Indeed we don't know if the foreign person it is addressed to will understand it as a French, English or American English date format .
The same will apply for us when we read English documents as we get very confused -- endless internal discussions in the teams I can tell you.

When I was working in an international environment involving American, Australian, European and Asian people back in the early Y2000, I was told that the official way to avoid any mistake was to use the "international" *YYYY/MM/DD* format. I really do not know where this "international" format comes from and if it really is, but fact is that I always use it since as I do not think there is any _YYYY/DD/MM_ available format in the world that would bring any uncertainty to this -- I bet now someone will try hard to break down my proof of concept and find out an odd far far away country that would use this format .
To answer older posts, may be Chinese people simply use the same because of their fully international daily businesses?

Now I understand that both American and British people agree on using *dd month yyyy* in their daily mails and that using *ddth month yyyy* still would be acceptable. I will then change now the way I write dates in my regular mails.

Back to the simplified dates, as I understand that there is still an ambiguity (*dd/mm/yy* vs. *mm/dd/yy*), I must admit there is no official nor world wide spread 'best' solution; so I think I will keep using my fully understandable *yyyy/mm/dd* format -- even if some do not like it, sorry CanuckPete .

Note that I have found this site also interesting (for non native english speaking people I mean):
http : / / www . ego4u . com / en / cram-up / vocabulary / date / written


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## HalfEmptyHero

a little edgy said:


> Interestingly, the US government and military typically put the day first when using words: 04 September 2009 (that is, the British style of date-writing). I assume that they write mm/dd/yyyy when using only numbers in order to avoid confusion.



Actually when using only numbers they do yyyymmdd or yymmdd which can be very confusing if you don't know thats how it is. 20101015 would be October 15, 2010, as would 101015.


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## James Brandon

To go back to the question of British English Vs American English (e.g.: 02/03/10 is 2 March 2010 in BE and 3 Feb 2010 in AE), I think that the best way actually is to rely on letters for the months, and there is a set list of abbreviations in English for those (JAN for January, FEB for February, etc.). Also in emails, this is actually easier to read in my view and it settles the matter without any risk of confusion on either side.

The 'international' corporate format and the US military format referred to here would be OK if users are forewarned, but otherwise look clunky to me and likely to generate yet more confusion.


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## JulianStuart

I recall when growing up (in UK) a large number of friends, acquaintances, family used Roman "numerals" for the month - and those few that still write letters still do!
5/xii/72 or 5.xii.72 would be 5th December 1972.  With so many different "systems" it's not surprising the ones that are possibly ambiguous are sometimes misinterpreted - d'oh!


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## natkretep

JulianStuart said:


> I recall when growing up (in UK) a large number of friends, acquaintances, family used Roman "numerals" for the month - and those few that still write letters still do!
> 5/xii/72 or 5.xii.72 would be 5th December 1972.  With so many different "systems" it's not surprising the ones that are possibly ambiguous are sometimes misinterpreted - d'oh!



I still use this style on occasions. I think also Royal Mail postmarks also used to havethe month in capitalised roman numerals: as in

15
VI
1989​
enclosed in a circle. I remember this very clearly, but can't seem to find any images of it. The only one I found is a Japanese  with the postmark 20.VI.05 12.18


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## panjandrum

See also date format.

The UK NHS follows James Brandon's advice, having standardised on dd mmm yyyy for dates (short form).
So today is shown as _18 Oct 2010_.


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## ewie

natkretep said:


> I still use this style on occasions. [...] The only one I found is a Japanese  with the postmark 20.VI.05 12.18


Me too, Nat, in the approximately _one_ letter a year I still write.

Here's a Canadian example of the postmark version.


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## natkretep

3.43pm, 18.x.10
Dear Ewie,
     That's very clever of you, Ewie! I'm sure that I've seen a British version of the postmark in this format, but can't find any. Am I dreaming or confusing it with something from somewhere else?

Yours sincerely,
Nat


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## ewie

natkretep said:


> 3.43pm, 18.x.10
> Dear Ewie,
> That's very clever of you, Ewie! I'm sure that I've seen a British version of the postmark in this format, but can't find any. Am I dreaming or confusing it with something from somewhere else?
> 
> Yours sincerely,
> Nat


Dingley Dell
Manchester
UK, 18-xii-10​Mr.N.Kretep
PO Box 12
Singapore

Dear Nat,
I would've said exactly the same thing, but I can't find a single example of it either on the 'internet' (as they call it) or in my extensive collection of crap correspondence dating back to the old century (as we used to call it).  So yes, you might well be hallucinating or something.
Yrs affec.,
Ewie


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## boozer

ewie said:


> Dingley Dell
> 
> Manchester
> UK, 18-xii-10​


​I greatly enjoy this epistolary mode of communication you have reverted to, but, just for the record, are you already living in the near future, Ewie? That is - December? ​


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## ewie

Apparently yes, Mr.B


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## James Brandon

Regarding the comment made that British postmarks used to incorporate indication of the date with the month in Roman numerals (e.g.: 10 VIII 1954 would be 10 August 1954), I am not so sure. I am away from home right now but, when I get back to London, I will look through my personal archive (which includes letters posted between 1930 and 1960, from both the UK and France). I will let you know what I find.

I have a feeling that, in the case of the UK, printing the date in letters for the month (3 letters as a rule, such as JUL for July etc) is long-established. However, I must admit that I do seem to remember seeing postmarks with the month in Roman numerals, as mentioned. This would not be recent. 

A philatelist, if there is one around on this forum, would know instantly what the answer was to this one.


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## allyprice

Hitchhiker said:


> I have seen both orders in South Africa and Namibia. Maybe Australia and New Zealand but I'm not certain about those. Their English isn't as strict as in the UK and South Africa has picked up a lot of American English.



In New Zealand we would always use the dd/mm/yy format. Many official papers now have the letters written nearby though so that Americans and others understand which order it is in.


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## natkretep

James Brandon said:


> I have a feeling that, in the case of the UK, printing the date in letters for the month (3 letters as a rule, such as JUL for July etc) is long-established. However, I must admit that I do seem to remember seeing postmarks with the month in Roman numerals, as mentioned. This would not be recent.



Thanks, Mr Brandon, for promising to check on this. But having scouted a little more, I found a stamp forum, and Ian Billings of Norvic Philatelics said (the context is the 09-09-09 postmark):



> I tried that for a customer one year, 2006 I think. He wanted similar 666 items from around the world. Very few countries have the date all-numeric it seems. Even here many of our older machines (especially in Wales) use Roman numerals, whilst the rest of our older machines use the abbreviated month - which doesn't work in Wales, of course. The only good 06-06-06 postmark I got him on commercial mail was from Israel, and next best was the Vatican!



This seems to confirm that at least in Wales, it was not uncommon to have the month written in roman numerals in the postmark. (I assume part of the reason for this is the avoidance of having to name the month in a specific language - English or Welsh.)

Here is an example from Ammandale in Wales, bearing the date 14-VII 2004.

And here is an example from the Jubilee Mail Centre (in Hounslow), bearing the date 7-XI 2002


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## James Brandon

OK, so it is clear that the use of Roman numerals is established and can still be found in the UK. If Royal Mail uses such way of identifying the month in Wales, I believe they would anywhere in the UK - I do not believe they would differentiate on that basis. (Cf the fact that postal addresses feature town/city, street and postcode, but do not include the mention 'Wales' or 'Scotland': it does not come into it, from the standpoint of Royal Mail.) 

The issue of bilingualism for postmarks in Wales would have arisen in the past 40 years only, I believe. Before that, I do not believe it would have come into the equation. A Welsh person may confirm. Today, of course, Wales having a devolved government of its own, it would very much be an issue.

Finally, to imply that Australia and New Zealand would have adopted American ways is, I believe, basically wrong and misleading. Both countries seem to me to very much follow the British system/standards in most things, and I am not surprised NZ would adhere to the British standard for dates. I was on holiday in Australia for a few weeks, 2 years ago, and was actually surprised how British the country is - far more than I expected, in fact. To put it differently, Australia and NZ are not Canada.


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## ewie

> The only good 06-06-06 postmark I got him on commercial mail was from Israel, and next best was the Vatican!





natkretep said:


> This seems to confirm that at least in Wales, it was not uncommon to have the month written in roman numerals in the postmark.


Aha! that would explain why it sounded so familiar when you first brought it up, Nat: in my first Great Correspondential Period (1975-80) I was living in Wales


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## Spira

Brioche said:


> And everywhere else in Europe, Australia, NZ, South Africa &c, &c for that matter.


 
Actually, not all Europe uses the format   dd/mm/yyyy.
Sweden, for example,  uses yyyy-mm-dd .

Otherwise, if I were dating a letter using the dd/month form I would always type or write 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. Even in business.


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## natkretep

Spira said:


> Actually, not all Europe uses the format   dd/mm/yyyy.
> Sweden, for example,  uses yyyy-mm-dd .



In the day-month-year sequence, would it always be dd/mm/yyyy or would d/m/yy be common too, or would it vary according to country? My question is on the use of leading 0s.

5 Jan 10 or 05 Jan 2010?
5/1/10 or 05/01/10 or 05/01/2010?

I once wrote a note that referred to *July 09*, meaning of course July 2009. I was surprised when this was interpreted as *9th July* - because I generally don't use leading 0s, and I don't put the day after the month.


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## Spira

natkretep said:


> In the day-month-year sequence, would it always be dd/mm/yyyy or would d/m/yy be common too, or would it vary according to country? My question is on the use of leading 0s.
> 
> 5 Jan 10 or 05 Jan 2010?
> 5/1/10 or 05/01/10 or 05/01/2010?
> 
> I once wrote a note that referred to *July 09*, meaning of course July 2009. I was surprised when this was interpreted as *9th July* - because I generally don't use leading 0s, and I don't put the day after the month.


 
As an Englishman I would say that d/m/yy wuld be clearly understood.
Where I come from you don't start a number (or date) with a zero.
By the way, this would also be true for France, where I live.
As for the others, I can't say..............


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## JulianStuart

natkretep said:


> In the day-month-year sequence, would it always be dd/mm/yyyy or would d/m/yy be common too, or would it vary according to country? My question is on the use of leading 0s.
> 
> 5 Jan 10 or 05 Jan 2010?
> 5/1/10 or 05/01/10 or 05/01/2010?
> 
> I once wrote a note that referred to *July 09*, meaning of course July 2009. I was surprised when this was interpreted as *9th July* - because I generally don't use leading 0s, and I don't put the day after the month.


Surely leading 0s are simply a consequence of the age of computing and a "smart" date "field" on an electronic form was for a long time a rarity and needed to be provided with the leading 0 since something had to fill that field or it would reject it!  This is distinct from the July '09 - even without the apostrophe (a character forbidden in many internet situations!!)


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## natkretep

JulianStuart said:


> Surely leading 0s are simply a consequence of the age of computing and a "smart" date "field" on an electronic form



I agree, but this practice appears to have been also transferred to other realms. Our cheques now have six boxes for the date in the DDMMYY format. I have also seen people writing (by hand) things like 01-08-10, whereas I stick staunchly to 1/8/10 or 1.viii.10 or 1 Aug 10. Or 1st August, 2010.


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## James Brandon

The issue of the year, since 2000, has introduced yet another element of potential confusion, as pointed out here. If you write, say, 09/10 and the context is not clear, instead of understanding September 2010, the reader may understand that you mean 9th October (BE) or September 10, i.e. 10th September (AE). 

To avoid such risk of (further) confusion, I would write out the month in letters (at any rate in abbreviated form), such as: Sept 10 or, even better, Sept 2010 (because Sept 10 could of course be interpreted as meaning 10th September).


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## natkretep

James Brandon said:


> To avoid such risk of (further) confusion, I would write out the month in letters (at any rate in abbreviated form), such as: Sept 10 or, even better, Sept 2010 (because Sept 10 could of course be interpreted as meaning 10th September).



I don't suppose even the apostrophe could rescue *Sept '10* from being ambiguous. Does nobody use the apostrophe any more?


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## allyprice

natkretep said:


> I don't suppose even the apostrophe could rescue *Sept '10* from being ambiguous. Does nobody use the apostrophe any more?



I use the apostrophe but mainly in my own notes or in personal letters. And I would read the above as September 2010. It most likely doesn't confuse me as I use the d/m/y format so it is in correct order. It is completely normal for me to write 3/10 and understand this is 3 October and I would do it when writing the date for lecture notes or placing an order for a client etc. Something that should only have a timeframe within that year. As we approach the end of the year I am likely to write 3/10/10.


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## JulianStuart

natkretep said:


> I don't suppose even the apostrophe could rescue *Sept '10* from being ambiguous. Does nobody use the apostrophe any more?



I think it _does_ make it unambiguous!  I see '09 and the like in newspapers and print but less so in electronic media outside specific file formats (.doc and .pdf etc ) and certainly not in URLs.  Even when I see it in electronic documents (and often in print as a result) it's usually upside down  - a pet peeve about "'smart' quotes lead to dumb apostrophes!"  It's also hard to search through google for punctuation information because it's usually ignored - so researching date formats is tough too.


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## ewie

JulianStuart said:


> it's usually upside down


 How can you tell when an apostrophe's upside down, Mr.S?


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## JulianStuart

In a sans serif font they are the same like this ''''', but in a serif font like Times, which of ‘ ’ ‘ ’ ‘ ’  those are apostrophes?


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## ewie

So you've seen dates that look like this: *Oct **‘**09* ... ?

Yes, that does look weird.


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## JulianStuart

ewie said:


> So you've seen dates that look like this: *Oct **‘**09* ... ?
> 
> Yes, that does look weird.



Indeed!  I've always blamed Micro$oft for "The wanton perversion of the apostrophe for want of a few lines of code" but_ perhaps t_hey are not to blame?  If anyone knows who actually committed this egregious sin, please speak up 
[/peeve]


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## Loob

I blame the Etruscans.


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## natkretep

JulianStuart said:


> I see '09 and the like in newspapers and print but less so in electronic media outside specific file formats (.doc and .pdf etc ) and certainly not in URLs.



You're telling me! I tried to do a bank transfer to St Andrew's Society (which I indicated on the website as *St Andrew's Soc*), and I got increasingly frustrated as I received error messages about the form being incomplete.  After a while, the penny dropped, and I dropped the apostrophe: payee *St Andrews Soc*. And everything worked like a dream. So the electronic format could also make you lose your apostrophes.

But back to years: I have had to resort to <Ctrl>+<'> then <'> in Word to force it to apostrophise. 

If you think it really does disambiguate, I might well write *Jan ’11* and suchlike then.


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## James Brandon

Overall, apostrophes are increasingly discarded (also due to the fact a lot of native speakers of English do not understand them and the use of them, since, at any rate when the apostrophe refers back to the possessive case in a language of Germanic origin, i.e. English, English speakers today are not familiar with the very concept of declension); computer language/conventions may not help here, as pointed out by a few contributors.

If you write '90, it is not a possessive case (Jane's car = the car that belongs to Jane) but it stands for a missing bit that one has chosen to leave out (here, 19, for 1990). In that sense, writing the year 2010 as '10 would and should help but there will then be 2 issues that crop up: (a) Will the person notice the apostrophe, and understand it basically represents a form of abbreviation (this is likely up to a point); (b) Will the apostrophe not get lost if, say, in the subject line of an email (and there would be a fairly high risk of loss of information in electronic media, due to issues mentioned above and below). So, in context, and preferably in print, the apostrophe may work and may help. Otherwise, I would not count on it.


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## I_Daniel

I can't remember the exact year. It was between 1975 and 1978 when  America, Britain, Japan, South Africa and other countries, at a meeting of the International Standards Organization, were all co-signers to an ISO agreement that from then on these countries would follow an international standard for dates:
 For the long form:- 21 October 2010
 The short form:- 2010-10-21

Writing the time was also decided to be  on a 24 hour basis.
 ie. 00:00 (Midnight ) to 23:59 ( 1 minute to midnight) that is, as it would appear on a 24 hour digital clock:-  Before noon 08:00.  After noon 15:00. 
Which just meant adding 12 to the time if it was after 12 noon.

I doubt if the countries concerned really did anything to propagate the use of the International Standards. The most confusing one is the American way if the month and date is 12 or below.  What does 12/11/2010 mean to someone not in the USA.  It usually means 12 November 2010.
If the international way to write dates and time is used on the WWW. then soon we will not have anymore misunderstanding about what date or time it is.


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## Einstein

An interesting fact is that while the British would normally write 11 September as 11/9, in discussions about the Twin Towers attack even the British say "nine eleven".


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## I_Daniel

In South Africa we also use "Nine Eleven".  It has become the name of the Twin Towers attack although it started as the date of the attack.


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## kalamazoo

ISO 8601.  The standard international date format is yyyy-mm-dd.


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## JulianStuart

kalamazoo said:


> ISO 8601.  The standard international date format is yyyy-mm-dd.


Keeps things consistent : big units on the left (just like numbers  )

A 64 digit number is enough to specify any point in time (so far since the (last?) big bang) - and the year would have to be yy yyy yy*y yyy*-mm-dd;hh:mm:ss.000000... (going out to 43 decimals will get you to the smallest time interval possible)  
In about 87 billion years we'd need another digit


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## kalamazoo

Year-month-day is also usually the best sort order.


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## I_Daniel

Oh well we still have some 7 000 years to go before the next y must be added. By then most of us will be gone.
At some future date they will probably have the Startrek date system.  But right now we need less confusion.


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## natkretep

kalamazoo said:


> Year-month-day is also usually the best sort order.



Agreed. That's the established Chinese way of representing the date. It's also the established Chinese way of organising the street address - from general to specific.

I suppose many times though, we are only focussed on part of the date when making arrangements - this week, next Thursday, etc. - so it feels cumbersome to always need to start with the year!


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## Andygc

James Brandon said:


> A philatelist, if there is one around on this forum, would know instantly what the answer was to this one.


Not a philatelist, but I have a large box of old stamps and covers. The style changed over time:
MY 21 61 (That is 1861)
18 NO 98
JY 23 08
25 OC 16
16 JA 40
23 AU 57
18 SP 1969 (the first one with year in full that I have found was from 1966)
Then the month became three letters - eg 18 JLY 1974, 28 APR 1975
I can't find anything later than that until today, when it remains as 23 OCT 2010.


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## natkretep

Thanks, Andy. In addition to those styles, and the one with the month in roman numerals, I've also seen versions with everything in arabic numerals, as in this one: 23.12.08 (dots as separator) from Manchester, or this one: 04/05/10 (oblique strokes as separator) from Bromley.


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## James Brandon

Back home in London and I have checked a shoe-box full of old letters sent by relatives to each other, and posted in London between about 1950 and 1955. I can confirm that the date is printed (on the post-mark) in the format Date--Month--Year, and the month is written in letters, not Roman numerals, and the year is written out in full (1950, 1951, etc.).

The month is usually shortened to 3 letters ('May' is just 'May' of course), but some abbreviations used are not the standards ones we would expect today. E.g.: 'February' is 'Feb' but 'June' is not 'Jun' but 'Jne' in some cases, and so on.

So, it would appear that contributors who remember Roman numerals being used in the past in the UK to identify months in dates on envelopes are wrong - and I was one of them.


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## panjandrum

I found one 
CLICK HERE
That is a Post Office postmark.

I have also seen the suggestion on some sites that a roman numeral for the month was common in Wales.


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## Loob

James, I'm not sure if I'm keeping up with the debate here....  But I certainly remember Royal Mail date stamps in England which used roman numerals for the month.  I also remember my mother using the same system for dating handwritten letters.


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## natkretep

Can I just say that my earlier post #79 refers to a postmark that originated near London (the Jubilee Mail Centre in Hounslow)? This is quoted in another edition of the Gibbon Stamp Monthly referred to by Panj.

So the roman style month is not confined to Wales.


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## JulianStuart

It may not be common any more any where, since it seems the ISO is, well, meaning standardizing thingz. One search I did yesterday for google images had its fist hit as a postmark from Latviya in the early 20th century with Roman numerals for the month. I think it suffices to say that it has been used in some English speaking countries (and others) but we should probably leave it to others to catalogue the extent thereof, no?


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## panjandrum

_<< Moderator note.
This thread is about date formats.
Posts about which postmarks appeared where, and the charming spelllling eccentricities of the Wellsh, are off topic and are only confusing the issue.
Please keep comments strictly to the topic.
panjandrum
(Moderator)>>_


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## Charlou

Hi all !

I've been trying to summarize this topic for my students... Can someone please correct me if I'm wrong ?

------

*Dates in English*​ 

There is not one correct and only way of expressing the date in English. You will probably come across *different formats* commonly used in written English (letters, newspaper articles, email, legal documents, etc.) as well as in spoken English (radio or TV broadcast, phone conversation, discussion, etc.).
These formats vary according to:
- the *place* (England or America, but also Wales, Scotland, Australia, etc.),
- the *time* when it was written (formats varied through history),
- the *type* of documents (business, literature, military, casual…)
- and finally the *habits* of the writer.
In the end there is *no strict rule* saying which format you should use, in general, just try to be *coherent* throughout the text (choose one format and stick to it), and throughout the discussion (adapt to the format the person you are talking to is using).

Spoken:

Most common in Britain: the twelfth of April (two thousand and eleven)
Most common in America: April twelfth (two thousand and eleven)
Other examples: April the twelfth ; April twelve ; (two thousand eleven) ; (twenty eleven)

Written:

Most common in Britain: 12 April 2011 ; 12th April 2011
Most common in America: April 12, 2001
Other examples 12th of April, 2001 ; April 12th, 2001 ; 12.IV.11


Short form:
Be very careful when dealing with abbreviated dates: the American form places the month before the day!
Example: Today is 12 April 2011:
12/04/2011 (Br)
04/12/2011 (Am)
2011-04-12 (international standard)
To avoid a possible misunderstanding, you can use the short form: 12 Apr 2011.
------

If I may horn in here, another oddity of the French language: we use cardinal numbers for the date, except for the first day of the month which is always ordinal...
ex: le 6 avril, le 1er mai...


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## adrnstyd

Indonesian use dd/mm/yy format too, same as british.


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## pob14

Charlou said:


> Hi all !
> 
> I've been trying to summarize this topic for my students... Can someone please correct me if I'm wrong ?
> 
> Spoken:
> Most common in America: April twelve (two thousand and eleven)
> 
> Written:
> Most common in America: April 12 2001


 
I would say that the most common format for a spoken date in the US is "April *twelfth*."  

For the written date, you are correct, but always with a comma:  "April 12*,* 2001."


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## Charlou

Ok! Thanks a lot! 

I edited my previous post for more clarity.

I also found a post on another forum about the use of the comma: http://www.englishforums.com/English/UsingCommaInDateFormat/vjcbb/post.htm


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## goat3

Pedro y La Torre said:


> The American format has always appeared very confusing to me, I wonder where it came from.
> 
> Excluding America, I don't think I've yet visited a country which doesn't use the dd/mm/yy format.



My first time on this topic at this place, I have pondered over the formats around the world for years. There is a world standard availalable ( ISO 8601 ) , which caught my attention many years ago, and if globally adopted , would solve all the dating format confusion for all international users.

Even China has been using this format which is simply, YYYY-MM-DD, as has Sweden, Canada and some European countries have derivatives such as 2011-11-18, T14:23.

The beauty of standardising this format, at least in the numerical sense, allows complete transparency of intention. 2011-11-18, Friday can be under stood by all users provided the year is always in four digits. and if the time stamp is necessary it must be in 24 hour format.
This is a most consistant method of showing the date, as it is also displayed in the logical order of year, month, day, hour, minute, second. Even the US should be happy not to have a big change in format.

There is still room for local customisation such as showing the numerical value followed by the abbreviated name for those who need even more clarity
eg 2011-11 (Nov)-18, Friday........ but this may not catch on.


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## papakapp

goat3 said:


> My first time on this topic at this place, I have pondered over the formats around the world for years. There is a world standard availalable ( ISO 8601 ) , which caught my attention many years ago, and if globally adopted , would solve all the dating format confusion for all international users.
> 
> Even China has been using this format which is simply, YYYY-MM-DD, as has Sweden, Canada and some European countries have derivatives such as 2011-11-18, T14:23.
> 
> The beauty of standardising this format, at least in the numerical sense, allows complete transparency of intention. 2011-11-18, Friday can be under stood by all users provided the year is always in four digits. and if the time stamp is necessary it must be in 24 hour format.
> This is a most consistant method of showing the date, as it is also displayed in the logical order of year, month, day, hour, minute, second. Even the US should be happy not to have a big change in format.
> 
> There is still room for local customisation such as showing the numerical value followed by the abbreviated name for those who need even more clarity
> eg 2011-11 (Nov)-18, Friday........ but this may not catch on.



Sometimes we Americans take pride in our idiosyncrasies.



That doesn't mean everyone has to be like us, as long as we get to be contrary.

**This opinion does not necessarily represent the majority opinion among Americans.**


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## James Brandon

I cannot imagine standardization, worldwide, being adopted one way or other. Discussions on accounting standards have taken decades and I have lost track as to whether an international agreement has been reached or not... Postal addresses are also written in different orders and different ways in various countries. Etc. Since the format chosen is purely based on convention, there is not a single version that is objectively better than another... This makes choosing a single format hard to do. And, if you choose a completely abstract and artificial solution, i.e. a format no one had thought of before, no one will want it, because it is going to be some sort of Esperanto.


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## nuritdinova

and is it necessary to write down the article? from the 1st June to the 1st September?


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## nuritdinova

I mean the definite article "the"


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## JulianStuart

James Brandon said:


> I cannot imagine standardization, worldwide, being adopted one way or other. Discussions on accounting standards have taken decades and I have lost track as to whether an international agreement has been reached or not... Postal addresses are also written in different orders and different ways in various countries. Etc. Since the format chosen is purely based on convention, there is not a single version that is objectively better than another... This makes choosing a single format hard to do. And, if you choose a completely abstract and artificial solution, i.e. a format no one had thought of before, no one will want it, because it is going to be some sort of Esperanto.


I agree about addresses not being standardizable (compare the US to the Japanese systems for example).

However, for dates, there is one that is not a new concept and is an extension of the one we already use for numbers. It has been mentioned a few times (and is already in use around the world) large units to the left of small units. Like thousands followed by hundreds followed by tens etc., the year (already in this format), followed by the month, the day, the hour the minute the second then decimal seconds.


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## James Brandon

Regarding standardization, I was referring more to the will and readiness to standardize as opposed to the issue of: Is it technically possible or not? Technically, pretty much anything is possible. But there would not be the will among governments and even ordinary people. At the end of the day, why _should_ everything be the same for everybody everywhere? Life is not an industrial process or a marketing strategy... Not yet anyway. 

Regarding the article, it is not needed in standard, business-like writing, at any rate in the UK: "The meeting will take place on 23 November 2011", meaning "on the 23rd of November". But in a letter where you refer to a specific date in the way that my example is put together, it is used, as I have noticed again recently: "I will see you on the 23rd!"


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## JulianStuart

James Brandon said:


> Regarding standardization, I was referring more to the will and readiness to standardize as opposed to the issue of: Is it technically possible or not? Technically, pretty much anything is possible. But there would not be the will among governments and even ordinary people. At the end of the day, why _should_ everything be the same for everybody everywhere? Life is not an industrial process or a marketing strategy... Not yet anyway!


I understand your comment now - the will to standardize rather than reaching an agreement on what to standardize "to".  In key fields where standardization is critical, it has happened; in other areas, where it is not critical there's no motivation or even perceived benefit, so "ain't gonna happen"


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## kalamazoo

I had to look this up once, and as I recall,the official EU standard is 2011-11-19.   This tends to annoy people in Europe who are complaining about American-style dates, because it means that whatever they are using is also not standard.

I do get correspondence from British journals sometimes, and it always annoys me that they don't spell out the month, because I am not always sure what date they mean.  When I correspond with British journals or individuals, I am pretty careful to make it clear what is the month (usually by spelling it out or abbreviating it), to avoid confusion.  I am not sure if the British journals are not aware of the difference or if they just think everyone should do things their way.


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## JulianStuart

kalamazoo said:


> I had to look this up once, and as I recall,the official EU standard is 2011-11-19.   This tends to annoy people in Europe who are complaining about American-style dates, because it means that whatever they are using is also not standard.
> 
> I do get correspondence from British journals sometimes, and it always annoys me that they don't spell out the month, because I am not always sure what date they mean.  When I correspond with British journals or individuals, I am pretty careful to make it clear what is the month (usually by spelling it out or abbreviating it), to avoid confusion.  I am not sure if the British journals are not aware of the difference or if they just think everyone should do things their way.



I think that whole experience is symmetrical - as in a likely comment from a Brit  "I am not sure if the British American journals are not aware of the difference  or if they just think everyone should do things their way."

People just do what they've always done   Large fractions of people on either side of the pond have no experience with what happens on the other side and that it may differ in key ways.  I have to admit that I think your annoyance (an American complaint about the British practice) is far rarer than the complaints the Brits have about what happens to English in America.

I took me quite a while after moving from the UK to learn the numbers of the months because it's so rarely spelled out here - the confusion arising from the Sept Oct Nov Dec being two digits away from the etymological meaning   I always used to spell out the month (or write it in Roman numerals).


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## PaulQ

I can’t see what’s wrong with today’s date being, “The nineteenth day of the eleventh month of the 59th year of the reign of Her Majesty Elizabeth II, Whom God Preserve.” It would certainly cut out a lot of confusion.


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## kalamazoo

I personally have experienced this problem a number of times with British journals (are they asking for this review by May 4 or April 5?) and I don't know, and neither do you, any British person who has had the counter experience with an American journal.  Of course Julian may well be right that British criticisms of American "English" are more frequent that American comments about British English.


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## JulianStuart

kalamazoo said:


> I personally have experienced this problem a number of times with British journals (are they asking for this review by May 4 or April 5?) and I don't know, and neither do you, any British person who has had the counter experience with an American journal.  Of course Julian may well be right that British criticisms of American "English" are more frequent that American comments about British English.



I think the 4/5 vs 5/4 confusion is probably evenly balanced and the comment was more about English in general than date formats in particular (more Brits talk negatively about "Americanisms" than the converse).


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## James Brandon

I think that most people in the UK are aware that Americans write the date the other way round. So far the British standard (in the UK) has been upheld and there has been no adoption of the US standard or some abstract, international standard that 'should' apply to everyone (who says?). In many other areas, the US standard has imposed itself, not always for any good reasons - other than the fact America's economy and military are the biggest, hence its bark is the loudest. (E.g.: the British billion has been ditched and is now considered to be a thousand million, i.e. the same as the American billion.) 

When America is isolated on certain things, it will simply go it alone (cf the issue of who barks loudest): E.g.: The US is one of the few - perhaps the only one left, in fact - countries that has not gone over to the metric system. Even the UK has had to under pressure from its European partners. So, America, forever the unruly offshoot of Britannia on the other side of the Atlantic, is being more Catholic than the Pope. Cheers!


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## natkretep

James Brandon said:


> So, America, forever the unruly offshoot of Britannia on the other side of the Atlantic, is being more Catholic than the Pope. Cheers!



Exactly! Yes, this was my point in post 25 here (What a massive thread this is!): that the so-called American system was inherited from the dominant system in the UK up till the 19th century.


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## James Brandon

I am not sure it can be said that the current US format for dates is closer to the historical UK format - and it would be the UK that has drifted away from the true original format, as it were. This is what you argue and illustrate in the post you refer to. 

It is actually true that, in many areas, practises and standards that surprise or annoy British people, when it comes to American English and Americans, are actually of (older) British origin - they simply got preserved or evolved in a different way in the USA. I once read - and cannot vouch for the accuracy of the view - that the American way of pronouncing the army rank of 'lieutenant' ['lootnt'] actually is far closer to the 16th or 17th century pronunciation in the UK (insofar as we know it) than the current British phonetic form ['leftn-nt']. 

The USA is, in many ways, the ultimate colonial offshoot (of Britain, that is), and far more so than many people realise. The only thing that divides Canada from the US is that Canadians were the Loyalists in British North America, while Americans were the Rebels in British North America. Both were part, ultimately, of British North America, if one looks at the legal etc framework that came to dominate.


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## JulianStuart

While still on the topic of US vs UK differences, my comment on the seemingly greater annoyance of Brits about American English (peeves) than vice versa was the subject of a lengthy (sic) discussion at Johnson and links therefrom.  James, I recall there were many instances of what you describe.


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## James Brandon

We are drifting off topic but The Economist's list (or set of comments on the list) is enlightening. "Gotten" is a good example of what was meant here.


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## ewie

James Brandon said:


> We are drifting off topic


You can say that again, JamesB

Time for another reminder that the subject of this thread is specifically date formats, not general transatlantic or transcontinental drifting


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## goat3

Although there is this constant drift off topic, I am delighted to see the topic of date format being discussed.  The ISO 8601  standard was developed in the US precisely for the reason of making the date format uniform universally and, at the same time put some order and sense into the sequencing of data fields.
It is obvious that having the Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minute, Second in this logical sequence makes the understanding easy.
It was proposed that by the US just changing the Year to the front of the date format, and adopting the 24 hour time format, it would be a big step towards standardisation. The rest of the world can easily see and understand the reason and logic for this change and needs to come on board.
I am dismayed that newspapers throughout the english speaking world show the date as Month, Day, Year regardless of the local convention of the country. I wonder why this is?
The whole reason for even thinking about a format change is to make the date fields understandable in all countries, especially those that have commerce with one another.
Twenty years ago while working in industry and with computers, I was aware of the need to show the Century in dates, as there was confusion with the move towards the year 2000 and the history of date fields with only a two digit year.
It takes discussion and understanding of the problem and its solution, but then a great deal more to bring about the change required by people, especially the will when confronted with a new idea that is better than the status quo. I welcome member of this forum for their feedback.


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## preppie

In the world of worldwide electronic commerce they decided not to decide.   If there is a date field in the data then there is a qualifier for that field.  Without the mumbo jumbo: the document says, "I am about to give you a date field which has the following format (pick your poison), and here is it"  So in the data it would look something like "...  12,20111210" which is December 10, 2011".   But if it said "...11,20111210" then that would be Nov 12, 2011.

Maybe we should do the same in our written communications !


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## JulianStuart

goat3 said:


> It takes discussion and understanding of the problem and its solution, but then *a great deal more* to bring about the change required by people, *especially the will* when confronted with a new idea that is better than the status quo. I welcome member of this forum for their feedback.



Indeed.  However, as I said in #97 


> _where it is not critical_ there's no motivation or even perceived benefit, so "ain't gonna happen"



Someone needs to come up with a perceived benefit for the tens of millions who don't care about the issue!


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## RCLB

Is it true that the Americans would say and write 4|5|12 (April the fifth, two thousand and twelve) and the British 5|4|12 (the fifth of April, two thousand and twelve?

Do they use it interchangeably?


Thanks.

Mod note: RCLB's thread has been merged with an earlier thread.


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## JulianStuart

<Deletion>

You have described the situation correctly 4/5/2012 is April 5th in the US but May 4th in many other English speaking countries.  They are not interchangeable and you need to know which country the writer is from to know what the date means.


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## heypresto

In Britain we invariably write 5/4/12. 

We (or at least I) get momentarily very confused when I see an American formatted date something like 3/19/12. It looks to my eyes like the third of the nineteenth month!

I dare say that some Americans are equally phased by our format?


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## JustKate

It definitely twists me around, that's for sure. I get 30 September 2012 fine, but 30/9/12 makes my eyes hurt. Habit is a very powerful force.


----------

