Date formats (and other standards that differ by country)

[CJD]

[Split from Recent Hauls. - Monk]

Prosit Neujahr

There's no thirty first month, stupid yuropoor. Can't even into death note's right.

[cyharding]

In some places such as Europe, they write the day first, then the month when they write out dates.

[Fireball]

There's no thirty first month, stupid yuropoor. Can't even into death note's right.

In some places such as Europe, they write the day first, then the month when they write out dates.

You mean like almost the whole world

[Xard]

Such a wonderful visual presentation of what I always found almost as retarded as non-commitment to metric syst-

You mean like almost the whole world

Wait, USA is the ONLY country that does it? hahaha, what the shit.

I think DMY and YMD are both sensible and equally valid systems but MDY makes no sense at all as the image well showcases. I thought this was another bad habit USA picked up from British but either this is some homecooked rule or then euro-anglos saw the light more recently.

[A.T. Fish]

Wait, USA is the ONLY country that does it? hahaha, what the shit.

I think DMY and YMD are both sensible and equally valid systems but MDY makes no sense at all as the image well showcases. I thought this was another bad habit USA picked up from British but either this is some homecooked rule or then euro-anglos saw the light more recently.

It does make some sense if you consider that in spoken english the month usually comes first (only exception I can think of is 4th of july), but yeah, other than that I don't see a reason to organize dates in such an illogical way.

[CJD]

In some places such as Europe, they write the day first, then the month when they write out dates.

SPOILER: Show

That's the joke.

Only a country as perfect as Murrica could achieve the balance that that structure wouldn't collapse. You're lucky we didn't make that part of the post WW2 negotiations.

[caragnafog dog]

There's no thirty first month, stupid yuropoor. Can't even into death note's right.

[Dr. Nick]

Is it that time again?

[caragnafog dog]

Maybe if a country that used that system won a superbowl we'd consider it. Until then? I don't think so tim.

[AR-99]

Is it that time again?

I'm an American and I support this.

[Redtophat]

Is it that time again?

I-It hurts, please stop

[cyharding]

Is it that time again?

And it's not going to change anytime soon. The main reason is that many land measurements are in English units and switching to metric would gum up the works. Hell, I remember when I was a kid, my dad had measure the length of a field in rods.

[drinian]

You're all wrong. Everyone should just use ISO 8601.

[Spud]

ISO 8601.

The only thing the Marine Corps got right in my opinion. On any legal/admin form in the Corps it has to be written YYYYMMDD. So much easier to understand.

[Mr. Tines]

Working in an English office of an American company much of my working life, I've picked up the habit of formatting dates like VAXen used to by default -- so today is 28-NOV-13. Putting the month as short form name disambiguates that bit, and nobody uses short form year as the first entry, so no ambiguity there.

[pwhodges]

Official British thinking on going completely metric is really messed up. Consider for instance this extract from the official instructions for placing road signs approaching an obstacle:

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Yes - signs giving distances in yards to be placed at the numerically similar distances in metres.

[NemZ]

Yes, it's completely stupid... but that's just how it is here, and trying to change it just confuses the hell out of people. We buy cola by the 2-litre and milk by the gallon, so who the hell knows?

[pwhodges]

And your pints and gallons are different from ours (more logical, actually, though both have roots in different English standards).

[Bagheera]

Meh. 12 months, 30-31 days, thousands of years. Makes perfect sense to me. Not like it matters worth a damn anyway.

As for metric, I've never understood the fuss. Oooh, everything's base 10! Fantastic! But in practical terms it doesn't amount to jack unless you're dealing with the sciences or engineering or such. And honestly, I've always found the jump from small to large to be off-putting -- you go from centimeter to meter and gram to kilogram, with nothing in-between. I much prefer having a foot in-between inches and yards, and the relationship between ounces and pounds is similarly handy.

One thing that always amuses me: even though they're so keen on metric you don't see its champions trying to convert us to 10 or 100 hour days. There's no reason we couldn't do that, but it just doesn't seem as handy as the system we currently use (so easy to break up 12 hours, or 60 minutes . . . very convenient compared to 10). Ease of use has its virtues.

[Sgt. Griff]

..unless you're dealing with the sciences or engineering or such.

(The basis of modern society)