9/11 [NOT about the attacks]

[Evil_Giraffe]

Does anyone else think the American date format (mm/dd/yyyy) is a little odd? In that the least significant number (i.e. the date) is in the centre. The English format (dd/mm/yyyy) is better, but still a bit odd, as it's little-endian (or is it big-endian? I keep getting them two the wrong way around) so the least significant digit (lsd) isn't at the beginning (msd of date is at the beginning, followed by lsd). yyyy/mm/dd is the most logical to me. Does any country use this as the "local" format? I think I was told once Canada did it like that, but I can't remember for sure.

[Gary.Lowe]

The way I see it is.

You live day by day, month by month, Year by Year

It then seems a logical way to display it.


I think the yanks just wanted there own way doing something that wasn't borrowed off someone else

[tr0n]

i agree with gary. the way i see it is that 11/09/2002 is the 11th day, of the 9th month, of the 2002nd year. i also agree that the US format is nuts.

[MerrionComputin]

The Scandinavian date format is YYYY/MM/DD. This makes sorting things by date trivially easy...

[Dreamlax]

I started a thread about the stupid American way. You mightn't find it very easily because my account was deleted when the forums went down.

Still, I've set Windows to use YYYY/MM/DD, and write all my programs to either that or DD/MM/(YY)YY. That way if the Americans have trouble using my software then they're too stupid to be using it at all.

[Nightwalker83]

Originally posted by Evil_Giraffe
Does anyone else think the American date format (mm/dd/yyyy) is a little odd? In that the least significant number (i.e. the date) is in the centre. The English format (dd/mm/yyyy) is better, but still a bit odd, as it's little-endian (or is it big-endian? I keep getting them two the wrong way around) so the least significant digit (lsd) isn't at the beginning (msd of date is at the beginning, followed by lsd). yyyy/mm/dd is the most logical to me. Does any country use this as the "local" format? I think I was told once Canada did it like that, but I can't remember for sure.

Who really cares what format the date is in. We still know what people mean no matter if it is written 11/9/2002 or 9/11/2002.

[Evil_Giraffe]

No, when I see 9/11 I think 9th November, whereas an American thinks of 11th September

[Dreamlax]

so do I actually, I default to 9th of November, and think a wee while before I think of 11th of September.

[chrisjk]

I think it's crazy and really is one of those pointless things who's only purpose is to confuse people

Moreover, why is the date format on this forum in the US format?

a) it's a british site
b) it has a very varied international community, most of whom expect it to the the other way around

[JPicasso]

Actually, since america has been around a long time before we settled
over in Europe, you guys should be carrying the correct date format
with you instead of switching around days and months.




I think it's odd that you spell centre wrong. The way you spell it,
it should clearly be pronounced (SEN-tree). Or is that the correct pronouciation too?

[Xanith]

Probably the American date format has something to do with business and accounting. When we didnt have computers and everything was done on paper it was easier to look at the years accounts and dates when the month was placed first. Where as if the date was first it would be a little confusing.

Still, I've set Windows to use YYYY/MM/DD, and write all my programs to either that or DD/MM/(YY)YY. That way if the Americans have trouble using my software then they're too stupid to be using it at all.

A good programmer will take into account ALL of his/her users. If you expect Americans to be using your software maybe its not the Americans that are stupid

[JPicasso]

Originally posted by Xanith

.... maybe its not the Americans that are stupid

What planet are you from?

[Wally Pipp]

Agree with the programming comment though. You should provide the options to all when making commercial programs.
In general I never really understood the fuzz about it. day-month-year makes perfect sense to me, just like the metrical system.
Each to their own I suppose.

[msimmons]

I think the Scandinavian date format that MerrionComputin mentioned should be adopted world wide. I think it makes the most sense in terms of grouping. I deal with hotels and reservations so I have to work with dates constantly (arrival, departure, & booked for example). A lot of my clients are outside of the US and about half of the US clients prefer the dd/mm/yyyy so I prefer to code that way but I have a routine that chops up and rearanges the date as needed for computing & displaying.
Oh well, all I ment to say was that we need to start a movement to switch to a standardized date format cos I'm tired of it.
Michael

[MidgetsBro]

Originally posted by chrisjk
no, that is correct way to spell centre, you are spelling it wrong

Majority rules

There's more of us American's than you Brits (maybe not on the forums, but in the world)... we spell it center, so that is how you spell it. Why would you spell it center - sen-tree like JPicasso said. And color... why colour? ka-lo-oo-er?? It's color.. ka-lor.

I get really confused when I see 30/8/2002 because I'm thinking... ***? There are only 12 months in a year! When you spell out the month, you read it like this: September 11th, 2002. So that is why we have 9/11/2002. You would read the date 11th September, 2002, unless you are on crack or something... lol.

That's just my $.02... $.02 won't get you much now a days.

[MidgetsBro]

Well I have a red and blue betta fish named Bob, so there.

I don't really care how anyone spells anything... every once in a while I spell it centre too, but usually because of typos. If it wasn't for Al Gore, there would be no such thing as the internet That was sarcasm... Al Gore is a queer.

[tr0n]

i just wanna pick up on the issue of spelling colour (and other words with a "u"). if americans think that is so silly, why do you spell "your" with a "u"? surely it should be "yor"??

[RSINGH]

Wouldn't Americans spell it 'yur'

j/k

[Wally Pipp]

Originally posted by chrisjk
...
Colour is actually pronounced culler so we're both wrong...but words are often not spelt how they are pronounced. Only the Germans really go in for that sort of thing.

Jawohl (it's hard to pronounce that 'h' you know but they manage it somehow) !

[Xanith]

Its kinda silly to argue about how things are spelled. Centre or Center who really cares as long as you can grasp the meaning of the sentence.

All languages evolve and change throughout the years. The study of language is actually quite interesting. Anyone interested in it should take a linguistics class

[MidgetsBro]

So the R hopping over the E is evolving?

[Xanith]

Originally posted by MidgetsBro
So the R hopping over the E is evolving?

Nothing wrong with a friendly game of leap frog

X

[Dreamlax]

Funnily enough we were debating about the spelling of words in my thread about the stupid American date format.

First of all, spelling is altered to make it easier to 'read' or 'understand'. Simply because Americans are too stupid to know that sulphur was never pronounced with an f (when the Greeks said it), doesn't mean that altering the spelling will make everything better.

Second, there is no need to program in a stupid date format, only the Americans do it mm/dd/yy, and if they can't understand the BIG HUGE LABELS I put everywhere saying it's yy/mm/dd or dd/mm/yy then they shouldn't be using a computer.

[plenderj]

Originally posted by JPicasso
Actually, since america has been around a long time before we settled
over in Europe, you guys should be carrying the correct date format
with you instead of switching around days and months.

What ?
America was colonized by europe.
All you had were indians dancing around fires for **** sake...

[Evil_Giraffe]

Originally posted by JPicasso
...instead of switching around days and months.

He was joking.
(At least, I really hope he was joking)

[Slaine]

As I have pointed out many times Center is the correct english spelling - Centre is the result of too much french interference.

But! This is the only thing the Americans get right - everything else they do is wrong

[CornedBee]

This may not be exact, I'm jsust recalling something I've learned long ago.

The English language is the result of mixing an old German dialect with the French the Normans spoke (when the Normans invaded GB). Therefore there is no such thing as "too much influence". It's a French word pronounced in the English way (which itself derived from old German pronounciation).
Since the German root was the language the people spoke and the French root the language the nobility spoke, the written language resembles French while the spoken language resembles German. The English people haven't changed this very much.

But since in America a lot of nationalities were present (with a good deal of Germans), the spelling was changed by everyone just after their fashion, then mixed up and the result is the moder AE.
When the USA was founded, German had the second rank in the election which language should be the official one. A shame that English was chosen....

As a natural German-speaker, I hate you all for having such different spellings and pronounciations. You must all learn German, we just had a spelling reformation to make it the same all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
To make things worse, seeing how a word is spelled gives you no hint at all about how the word is pronounced. German is far better at this (though it has far more complicated grammar).

[Wally Pipp]

As a dutch speaker I know perfectly well how German is pronounced.
Like an order barked through a lead pipe

[Slaine]

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgaben- übertragungsgesetz

hehe German is cool, it has lots of funny words

[Dreamlax]

Edits hereinafter are in bold

Apparently my pronunciation and fluency of German are excellent (according to my teacher) but my grammar sucks like hell. If someone talks to me in German I can probably understand them, but I could never make myself clear to a German speaker.

Someone told me the longest German word he knew for the shortest English word was Kinderzugzugbonbonmitehdlholtzhandangriff, which meant lollipop (child's all day sucker with special wooden handle). Not sure about the spelling though!

[Slaine]

Originally posted by Dreamlax
Apparently my pronunciation and fluency of German are excellent (according to my teacher) but my grammar sucks like hell. If someone talks to me in German I can probably understand them, but I could never make myself clear to a German speaker.

I have the same problem with English and it's my first language

[InvisibleDuncan]

Originally posted by CornedBee
To make things worse, seeing how a word is spelled gives you no hint at all about how the word is pronounced.

Spelt, I think you'll find.

[plenderj]

Originally posted by InvisibleDuncan
Spelt, I think you'll find.

Supposedly though according to the oxford english dictionary, spelled is also acceptable.
I never knew that...

spell1
· v. (past and past part. spelled or chiefly Brit. spelt)
1 write or name the letters that form (a word) in correct sequence. Ø (of letters) make up or form (a word).
2 be a sign of; lead to: the plans would spell disaster for the economy.
3 (spell something out) explain something simply and in detail.
– DERIVATIVES spelling n.
– ORIGIN ME: shortening of OFr. espeller, from the Gmc base of spell2.

[CornedBee]

Wally: In return, it seems to me that all Dutch must have some throat damage to be able to speak their language, so I'm not really upset.


Kinderzugzugbonbonmitehdlholtzhandangriff

should be

Kinderzugzugbonbonmitedelholzhandgriff

which is not a word because unrelated words are dragged together.

The longset word I know is

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänskajütentürschlüssel.

which means

key of the door of the chamber (actually don't know what the room of the captain of a ship is really called in English) of a captain of the Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft (DDSG), which is the Austrian company that posesses most of the ships that carry goods and passengers along the Austrian part of the Danube river (Danube Steam Ship Driving Company).

German has long words because if you combine words they are written together, whereas in English you write them seperated.
A truck load = Eine Wagenladung.

Grammar in German is a real problem because there are so many irregularities. I don't know much grammar in German myself, I just grew up with it.
It is therefore good to be German because then you already know one of the hardest Western European languages.

[Dreamlax]

Out of all the languages I speak (Mandarin, German, Samoan, and English) I'd have to say that the easiest language to build up vocab is German. You don't have to hear someone say the word because it is probably pronounced how it is spelt. Mandarin (or any dialect) is difficult because a fair few set of the characters look similar, if you have unicode enabled you might see the two following characters:

”L, •`.

The first means cat, the second means to trace. First one is pronounced mao, the second miao. In my opinion, miao should mean cat (meow)!

[Dreamlax]

OK looks like the forum doesn't support unicode too well... the two characters are meant to look similar anyway!

[JPicasso]

Originally posted by plenderj
What ?
America was colonized by europe.
All you had were indians dancing around fires for **** sake...

Look, I don't know what kind of freaky history you learn over the
ocean, but we all know that america was the first contry
founded, ever, and all other countries are just colonies that
we started. Everything else you hear is just fiction that has been
passed down from generation to generation.

(I know I'm american but give me some credit! )

[plenderj]

Well you must be joking.

[CornedBee]

No way. All of the world belonged to Austria-Hungary once but much of it splittered off due to the fact that the inhabitants were too dumb to what honour they received by belonging to us.

[parksie]

I say bring back the British Empire...