Re: [OT Why GB English is different] Re: Mozilla firefox en-gb

[richard lyons <richard@the-place.net>]

On Thursday 06 May 2004 10:39, William Ballard wrote:
> On Thu, May 06, 2004 at 03:24:40PM +0200, Michael Dominok wrote:
> > On Thu, 2004-05-06 at 14:33, William Ballard wrote:
> > > Another real problem for me is I *really* like the Contenintal style of
> > > writing the dates: dd/mm/yy.  But you can cause *endless* confusion by
> >
> > The "Continental style" is ISO 8601, thats yyyy-mm-dd. At least in my
> > part of the Continent.
>
> Well, somebody, somewhere, in some context, writes it dd/mm/yy or
> Windows wouldn't have a mode for it.

I think most europeans would normally say 'the sixth of may 2004' and 
certainly would normally write it that way on, for example a letter
'Marseille, le 6 mai 2004', 'Firenze, il 6 maggio 2004', (with possible 
additional commas) etc.  But it is entirely rational, since we write the 
smallest order digit at the right of numbers, to put this in the order 
2004/05/06 if we are being orderly and businesslike.  The germans may use it 
more widely, I don't know, but most of us would see that as reasonable and 
normal for example for data processing purposes.  That doesn't mean we are 
about to adopt it day-to-day or in speech.  

The only truly irrational method is the american one, zigzagging the orders of 
magnitude hither and thither.  Still, it is one of the quirks that endear our 
transatlantic friends to us.
 
-- 
richard