sgh@banshee.cb.lucent.com wrote:

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From: Peter Hullah <Peter.Hullah@eurocontrol.fr> Organization: EUROCONTROL European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 15:06:45 +0200

I was under the impression that the correct term was "Coordinated Universal Time" and its abbrevation was "UTC" ("CUT" having, so I heard, been ruled out as it's a vulgar word in Dutch!)

Actually, I was told that the designation was a compromise between several European nations. It was decided that the common time reference would still be Greenwich, England (instead of some other city on the same longitude), but the compromise was that its name would be French (the French for "Universal Time Coordinated" -- I don't speak French) -- thus UTC.

Definitevely no. In French, this is called (since my father -born in 1928- was a baby ;-) "Temps Universel" and abbreviated TU (even since the introduction of the "differents" Universal Times, UT0, UT1 and UTC, who spells TU0, TU1 and TUC in French). TUC, for "Temps Universel Coordonné" (the normal wording for UTC) is not in day to day use, but I have seen it a few times, in concurrence with UTC. Winter Time ("Standard Time" to speak as you do ;-) is often referred as "TU+1", and "Summer Time" (DST) is "TU+2". I don't know how the law is written. I'm under the impression that UTC comes from analogy with UT0 and UT1, but this is only an impression. About compromise, I was told that the compromise was "the reference is in Greenwich" versus "the British go to the metric system". But please note that: - I'm not 100% sure of that - this is not necessary my opinion - I have no opinions about the effectiveness of this before you flame me! Antoine LECA PS: if you don't speak French, I can give you a trick : the words are relatives from the English ones, but the order is generaly reversed.