1d ago

ISO 8601

https://xkcd.com/1179

232 comments

I regularly work with Americans, Canadians, and Europeans. So many times each group defaults to their own format and mistakes occur I gave up on all the formats listed by OP. If i have to write a date in correspondence its like: Feb 27th 2013. No ambiguity. No one has ever challenged me on it either. It is universally understood.
- Jokes on you, I can't fucking rember which English month is which. April, May, July and Autum is just a grey mass to me.
  
  Autumn is a season lol
  I think you mean August.
  September, October, November and December are easy to remember because they're Roman numbers. 7-10 But two off because at some point they added July and August to honor Julius Augustus. So "month seven" is the 9th month.
  
  Honestly I do remember some months, like starting and ending of the year. I don't encounter English month names on a regular enough basis to remember their order and my month names in no way relate to English ones.
  So anything after February and before August I have to google each time I encounter them.
  It doesn't help that we don't even have month abbreviations like English does (Jan, Feb, etc.).
- I prefer 27 Feb 2013, it's how my work writes dates.
  
  My biggest point of professional pride was the time my boss sent a mass group text to all his employees asking them to format dates the way I do
  He didn't say it was the format I used, so I didn't speak up and say "it's actually ISO-8601," because I assume my coworkers who were used to writing things like "February 27 8:00-4:45" rather than "2013-02-27 8:00-4:45 (8:45)" may stab me
  
  I prefer 27. Feb. 2013
  
  I prefer 13 Feb 27
  
  That's not very onionized of you
- I was introduced to ISO 8601 in the US military. Yay standardization!
- You meant 27th Feb 2013, right? It is utterly moronic to have day in the middle irrespectively if you start with or finish on the year.
  
  You meant 27th Feb 2013, right?
  Does it matter anymore with this format? You figured out the exact day, month, and year irrespective of the order.
  
  It's not about understanding. It's about sorting,
  Everybody understand both notations, but if you use it for filenames sorting is important. Natural sorting order is an important feature that should be considered.
  day month year is just stupid in that regard. Not only does the of the month depend on the language, but also if sorted you get the first of every month grouped together.
  
  If you're listing dates, then using a sortable format is ideal. But if you're just referencing one in the middle of a correspondence, it's best to use whatever format the recipient is most familiar with. No one is sorting emails by a date given in the third paragraph
  
  "Moronic" before and now "stupid". Folks are very passionate about their date formats.
  
  Does it matter anymore
  Possibly just the matter of logic.
  
  I assume it depends on geographical region, but I've never heard someone say out loud "27th of February, 2013." It's always "February 27th, 2013." Writing it down like that could be easier to parse for people who are used to that format
  
  Let me guess - you are a USian?
  
  No, I'm American
  I want to get ahead of this debate, and point out that a) "American" as a demonym for literally anyone in the western hemisphere is largely useless, b) the USA is the only country which includes "America" in its name, and c) USian is not more precise because there are two countries with United States in their name.
  
  This guide may come handy:
  https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/36440098
  So, are you a USian?
  
  No, I'm American. It looks like you started writing this comment before I made the edit to mine, so I'll go ahead and copy/paste it here
  a) "American" as a demonym for literally anyone in the western hemisphere is largely useless, b) the USA is the only country which includes "America" in its name, and c) USian is not more precise because there are two countries with United States in their name.
  
  So, you are a USian. I thought so. I never ever heard someone saying "February 27th 2018", I think only USians do that. Everywhere else it is 27th of February 2018 which is logical.
  
  No, I'm American, and I just gave you three good reasons to stop using "USian," not the least of which being that "US" is not exclusive to the United States of America. Are people from the ~~United States of Mexico~~ United Mexican States USians as well?
  I don't have the audacity to try and force a different demonym onto you, please don't do that to me.
  
  No, I'm American
  I have no doubt you are an American as much as people from Mexico, Venezuela or Brazil are Americans. The same as people from Germany, Spain or Italy are Europeans.
  United States of Mexico
  There is no such thing.
  
  The United Mexican States. They still have United States in their name. Notably, they don't have America in their name, just like every single other country besides the USA. So when we're talking about the demonym for a particular country, "American" is the one for people in the USA, just like how "Mexican" is the one for people in the United Mexican States.
  Also notably, they live on an entirely different continent from Venezuela and Brazil. Mexicans and Americans are North American, as opposed to Venezuelans and Brazilians who are South American. Lumping these continents together makes as much sense as lumping Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia together. But I know you aren't trying to make sense, you're just trying to get under Americans' skin, so I'm gonna ignore you now
  
  Mexico's name is the United Mexican States.

232 comments