Markus Kuhn wrote:
I didn't like the resulting article much.
I can't say I liked it much either, but I think your conclusions are incorrect.
Mr. Auerbach presented dd.mm.yy as THE international standard format and yyyy-mm-dd as something only pushed by "a small but influential band of global order-makers" [...] In general, the article has a clear tendency to make fun of international standardization
I thought it pushes for the older pre-ISO-8601 euro-standard of dd.mm.yy. I count the following: 15 YESes for dd.mm.[yy]yy, including the opening 2 opinions. This included: -- a banker at Merril Lynch -- what could be more All-American(TM)? -- several militarists -- including the DoD itself, and several retired militarist (can we guess these guys aren't sitting around at a veteran's hall, but maybe members of the industrial-military complex. -- a historian -- what could be more American than a historian at Plymouth Rock! -- and several other business folks, -- plus an Englishman (we can ignore him :-) -- and some other computer guy; all backed-up by American usage references. This all sounds like a solid bunch of supporters to me. On the other hand, there were 4 NOs for dd.mm.yy, but yes for the old-American style. The four were: 1. a principal of a grammer-school (note he didn't use the more neutral term: elementary school); 2. a proofreader (who either is a famous cartoonist or has the same name and lives in the same city); 3. the old dictionary entry (but immediately counter by a yeah from the editor himself) and 4. a banker -- but not one at a company worth mentioning. The 1st group not only out numbers the second in the article, but I think gets much more respect from your average WSJ reader any day of the week including on the 4th of July (or is that July the 4th :-) In fact, I'm so sure of who the average reader would respect that I'll bet you a case of Bud, but I'm not sure you'd want to drink it. I know I wouldn't.
and it desperately tries to mix in good old-fashined All-American [TM] patriotism to generate the warm fuzzy national-anthem-singing feeling that Auerbach probably thinks the reader seems to hunger for.
Another reading might suggest that a summary could be: American business and military are moving toward the (old) European date standard including all-american flag waving companies like Budweiser.
The information on ISO 8601 served only as a cheap background contrast in this image ...
I'd have to agree with that, but I'd suggest that this article is less nationalistic than a typical example of a word oriented person who is more than willing to go with a little-endian single, smallest on the left, word-order style, that is more international and replace an older "quirky" two phrase syntax. At the same time, to the author it seems hardly worth mentioning a big-endian, smallest on the right, number-oriented style.
Well, it wasn't the first disappointment I had with journalists who probably know already what they want to write before they interview you.
Maybe also you already knew what you wanted to read. ;-)
About the Bud label: Does 02Jan03 now mean 2003-01-02 or 2002-01-03? Who cares, I am looking forward to collect Y2K bottles saying 02Jan100 anyway ... :-)
I bet they don't appear, but I can send you an example if I see one. By the way, the history of "mmm dd, yyyy" mentioned in the article sounds like a hokum to me. cheers, -Paul -- Paul A. Hill, Myriad Genetics Laboratories, http://www.myriad.com/