On Thu 6 May 2004 15:41, William Ballard wrote: > On Thu, May 06, 2004 at 09:20:21PM +0200, Roel Schroeven wrote: > > > > One way to avoid the confusion is by using the ISO format: > > yyyy/mm/dd. Also makes it very easy to sort by date. > > In America, one should not date checks that way, unless one wishes to > eventually to get checks returned by the bank. Are you serious? You'd think banks would prefer that format since it is absolutely unambiguous and avoids confusion. If it's towards the end of the month of May, how is the bank supposed to know if 05/06/04 is referring to 6 May or 5 June (a post-dated cheque)? > > Nor should you fill out your income tax forms that way. > > (Just because you tried it in the past and got away with it doesn't > mean what I'm saying isn't true.) > > Nor should you always write down the year in notes to your friends or > in your day planner, unless you are silly. Well I wouldn't write 2004-05-06 to my friends, but I wouldn't write 05/06 or 06/05 either - I'd write 6 May or maybe May 6 > > Nor should you title the columns of newspapers that way. Nor, might > I add, should you date the report to your Boss's Boss's Boss that > way, unless you want to make him squinch his nose and wonder why you > are a troublemaker. Well no again, that's what the "long" format is for - Thursday, the 6th of May, 2004 or Thursday, May 6th, 2004. But again, I certainly wouldn't write 05/06/04 in that context either because it lacks exactitude and clarity. > > Basically yyyy/mm/dd is good for military and technical things, and > on the computer, but is not widely used as a way to express the date > for human consumption. Well if yyyy-mm-dd isn't suitable in a given context then neither is any other abbreviated numbers-only format. The only ones that might be employ a three-letter abbreviation of the month. Other than that, you should probably be using the full long date format. -- David P James Ottawa, Ontario http://david.jamesnet.ca ICQ: #42891899, Jabber: davidpjames@jabber.org If you've lost something, you had to lose it, not loose it.
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