Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 09:44:25 +1100 From: Alex LIVINGSTON <alex@agsm.edu.au> Message-ID: <a04330100b68292dc0db1@[149.171.217.233]> | And it's not just because "S" | stands for "standard" in the former case and "Summer" in the latter: | it stands for "standard" in both cases! Sometimes I'm ashamed to be | Australian. In Victoria at least, the S that is current now is "Summer". It comes from the Summer Time act, which specifies that Eastern Summer Time is what it shall be called. It doesn't actually specify the abbreviation (acronym) but it is a pretty obvious step... The people who stick an "A" in the Aust time zone labels are just doing it to try and stay unambiguous with the US labels that are largely similar (except Aus has WST instead of PST, and we have no fourth M zone, being of a similar width but lower latitude). The A is no more correct than it would be to call -0500 NAEST (or USEST or something) - though in some uses doing so might save a lot of problems. kre