May be someone on this list has some insight about this topic: A journalist of the Wall Street Journal has contacted me as part of his research for a feature article about date notations. He noted that more and more Americans now start to use the European day, month, year notation instead of the traditional month, day, year, and he now realizes that thanks to ISO 8601 all this is moving into the wrong direction anyway. He would be very interested into any pointers of the history of these three date notations, and actually I am quite interested as well. Why do Americans write dates as "December 31, 1999" while Europeans write "31 December 1999", etc.? Why are in East Asia Bigendian dates more common? Markus -- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
Markus Kuhn wrote:
May be someone on this list has some insight about this topic:
A journalist of the Wall Street Journal has contacted me as part of his research for a feature article about date notations. He noted that more and more Americans now start to use the European day, month, year notation instead of the traditional month, day, year, and he now realizes that thanks to ISO 8601 all this is moving into the wrong direction anyway.
Assuming you meant that the reporter thought that ISO 8601 is the wrong direction, I would say this is consistent. The reporter is probably a word person. In European languages word order is left to right, so it makes sense that he would think that smallest to largest should be left to right and should be 'correct'. If he likes 8601, he is viewing a date as a numeric value. ISO 8601 is number oriented. While the standard doesn't mention 'numeric' in title, the first sentence does. "The scope and field of application" makes it more explicit that what they are talking about is something which can be used in 'difference calculations' and 'combinations' and 'time intervals'. Thus 8601 is smallest to largest _right_ to _left_ because it is numeric oriented. This is really because of the difference between Arabic and Latin. We write numbers smallest to largest, right to left because Arabic is written right to left. Big-endian (Largest on the left) is mathematical, i.e. borrowed from Arabic, while little-endian (Smallest on the left), is word oriented, is like Latin, like English. The differences of little-endian vs. big-endian have been with us since we started using Arabic numbers. In European languages we never worked out whether we should read all the digits left to right or right to left. The "teens" (i.e. the tens digit ) and the units in English are read in the Arabic order when the tens digit is a one, but in the Latin order when it is anything else. Try: 113 = One hundred and Thirteen. That is: 100 + 3 + 10. vs. Try: 325 = Three hundred and Twenty Five. That is: 300 +20 + 5 Note that in Spanish only the 1st 5 'teens' are read in Arabic (numeric, right to left) order (i.e. 11, 12, 13, 14 & 15), while the rest are read in Latin order. That is probably enough on numeric vs. word order.
He would be very interested into any pointers of the history of these three date notations, and actually I am quite interested as well. Why do Americans write dates as "December 31, 1999" while Europeans write "31 December 1999", etc.? Why are in East Asia Bigendian dates more common?
American write dates Month day, year because that is how they (Often) say it. Turn on the Television Evening News and they say in accepted contemporary usage: "This is the NBC World News Tonight for February the Ninth, Nineteen hundred and Ninety-nine." and on the screen is "February 9, 1999". Now, as is typical with natural languages, consistency is not always in the cards. For example, the name of the American Independence Day is "The Fourth of July Weekend" or "The 4th of July Holiday" or simply "The Fourth". But if someone spoke the date that the Declaration of Independence was signed you'd more commonly hear: "July the 4th, Seventeen Seventy Six." We see from these examples, that when the words are a title, i.e. the name of the day or holiday, it ends up in Latin/word order, when it is a date it is written as an American date is spoken, as _two_ parts separated by a comma, _each_ in its own Arabic/numeric order to the limits of number reading conventions already existing in the language. [For another example, think of FDR's speech 'the Day that will live in infamy', which date style did he use? ] So what is the common notation in East Asia? You say big-endian. Is that 1999-Jan-3? Is a notation like 1999-Jan-3 possibly a normalization of the form Jan 3, 1999 as learned from the American influenced multi-nationals over the last 50 years. Ooops, they decided to clean it up and chose a numeric orientation, just when Europeans were all using a word orientation. Someone should have stopped them because that is wrong! :-) -Paul
Paul Hill wrote: ] Assuming you meant that the reporter thought that ISO 8601 is the wrong ] direction, I would say this is consistent. The reporter is probably a word ] person. In European languages word order is left to right, so it makes sense ] that he would think that smallest to largest should be left to right and should ] be 'correct'. If he likes 8601, he is viewing a date as a numeric value. Let me get this straight. Are you saying that "10/2/99" (or "2/9/99" for US folks) is a "word"??? David, who wishes that the world would leave behind historical baggage, and standardise on ISO-8601 YYYY-MM-DD notation before the year 2000. __________________________________________________________________________ David Keegel <djk@cyber.com.au> URL: http://www.cyber.com.au/users/djk/ Cybersource P/L: Unix Systems Administration and TCP/IP network management
David Keegel wrote:
Let me get this straight. Are you saying that "10/2/99" (or "2/9/99" for US folks) is a "word"???
I'd say a date is a phrase. "Ten" is a word, "The 10th of February Nineteen hundred and ninety nine", "February the 9th Nineteen hundred and ninety nine" and "October the 30th in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and fifty nine" are phrases. BTW, It was nice that you included the international dateline calculation in your example, after all this is the timezone list.
David, who wishes that the world would leave behind historical baggage, and standardise on ISO-8601 YYYY-MM-DD notation before the year 2000.
It always brings a smile to my face when I read his 'note to American readers' on his web page. People who want to impose regular and rational usage on the spoken language have such an up-hill battle, especially when we speak such a mutt of a language. English is so darn inconsistent, just in the date phrase we can recognize Arabic, Early Christen and Roman influences and then if we added the name of the day of week we can throw in another influence. But maybe we should take up that discussion on the calendar mailing list instead of this timezone mailing list. (Could someone please send me the address for that list). I'll stop using analogue watches with 12 numbers on them when meetings, travel time between work and home, and expected arrival times of friends coming over for dinner, has to be timed closer than the few minute resolution that comes from a quick glance at a watch or wall clock. I might stop saying and writing things like "a quarter to three in the afternoon", or 2:45 PM, the day Big Ben gets a 24-hour digital display. I'll also consider never saying GMT again and going with UTC, when the BBC World Service stops saying "Greenwich Mean Time" (just to name one very common example of the term GMT which is still in use.) Don't get me wrong ISO 8601 has its place, and I'm glad it exists and I'll use it where appropriate, but suggesting we use it as a standard for everything is maybe a little Quixotic. -Paul -- Java FAQ: http://www.afu.com/javafaq.html
So what is the common notation in East Asia? You say big-endian. Is that 1999-Jan-3?
In Japan, the notation like '1999(year)1(month)3(day)' is common. We have single characters for each unit. Using symbols, we write '1999/1/3'. For numbers, we also read all the digits from left to right. I think there is no significant exception in big-endian. -- hideyuki
The feature on date notations appeared in the 01/06/99 edition of the Wall Street Journal, including a quote from our illustrious Mr. Kuhn. Coincidentally I had picked up the paper in the Boston airport as I was coming in from France, and had just filled out the dd/mm/yy blanks on the US customs form that they mentioned in the article. I liked the use of the term "highfalutin" that someone used to describe Americans (like myself) that use the day-first notation. Wonder what they would say about us using metric paper sizes? I am kicking myself for having forgotten to stock up on office supplies whilst in Paris, especially with the USD so strong.
Scott Harrington wrote on 1999-06-02 20:55 UTC:
The feature on date notations appeared in the 01/06/99 edition of the Wall Street Journal, including a quote from our illustrious Mr. Kuhn.
Oh dear, That strange quote from the illustrious Mr. Kuhn was all that survived from a detailed >30 min phone interview that took place over a month ago. It seems enough Y2K craze web pages point to my ISO 8601 summary that even journalists now stumble across it. I didn't like the resulting article much. 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" (that must probably be us then :-), ignoring the Japanese/ Chinese traditional Bigendianism completely. He also ignored all the evidence that I listed on ISO 8601 quickly gaining momentum in Europe. In general, the article has a clear tendency to make fun of international standardization 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. The information on ISO 8601 served only as a cheap background contrast in this image ... Well, it wasn't the first disappointment I had with journalists who probably know already what they want to write before they interview you. In case you want to comment about the article to the author, his email is Jon Auerbach <Jon.Auerbach@news.wsj.com> I'll attach a copy of the article below. 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 ... :-) Markus -- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
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/
Although, curiously enough, my local paper (Watford, Herts, England) always uses the format: Friday, June 4, 1999 so maybe we are moving to the US system Best wishes Alan Pritchard The GLOBAL GAZETTEER: the world on file http://www.allm-geodata.com
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Scott Harrington wrote on 1999-06-02 20:55 UTC:
The feature on date notations appeared in the 01/06/99 edition of the Wall Street Journal, including a quote from our illustrious Mr. Kuhn.
Oh dear,
That strange quote from the illustrious Mr. Kuhn was all that survived from a detailed >30 min phone interview that took place over a month ago. It seems enough Y2K craze web pages point to my ISO 8601 summary that even journalists now stumble across it. I didn't like the resulting article much. 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" (that must probably be us then :-), ignoring the Japanese/ Chinese traditional Bigendianism completely. He also ignored all the evidence that I listed on ISO 8601 quickly gaining momentum in Europe. In general, the article has a clear tendency to make fun of international standardization 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. The information on ISO 8601 served only as a cheap background contrast in this image ...
Well, it wasn't the first disappointment I had with journalists who probably know already what they want to write before they interview you.
In case you want to comment about the article to the author, his email is
Jon Auerbach <Jon.Auerbach@news.wsj.com>
I'll attach a copy of the article below.
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 ... :-)
Markus
-- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
participants (6)
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apritchard＠cix.co.uk -
David Keegel -
Hideyuki Suzuki -
Markus Kuhn -
Paul Hill -
Scott Harrington