this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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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.
I prefer 27 Feb 2013, it's how my work writes dates.
I prefer 27. Feb. 2013
I prefer 13 Feb 27
That's not very onionized of you
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
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
There is no such thing.
Mexico's name is the United Mexican States.
I know. He apparently doesn't but that doesn't surprise me - USians are usually ignorant about anything outside of their borders.
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
I was always curious why USians have issue with them being called USians. America is a continent. You know, like Europe.
Let's assume some nation of halfwits creates a country named United States of Earth and will be insistent that since they are the only ones with Earth in country name, they are the only ones to be called Earthlings.
We would laugh at these halfwits, wouldn't we? 🤣
But it is good to see you at least acknowledged your ignorance of geography.
I guess I'm back to make fun of you
North America is a continent
South America is a different continent
West British schools must really skimp on geography. American schools aren't much better, but at least we know there are seven continents (six, if you consider Eurasia a single continent)
Wrong again. They may be teaching you that In Anglosphere perhaps, but even USians surely must know continents are not really defined?
https://theweek.com/science/continents-science-north-america-europe
Yes dear USian, brain blowing, isn't it? 🤣
As long as we're being pedantic bitches, there's actually anywhere between four and seven, depending on how you define it. Not my fault European schools teach you wrong too
Given that continents are generally ill-defined, do you reckon maybe we should simply... ask the people who live there what they want to be called?
Like in my example with halfwits from United States of Earth demanding to be called Earthlings? 🤣
I mean, yeah, if a) it was the linguistic norm to call them Earthlings, and b) it was not a linguistic norm to call anyone else on Earth an Earthling. It's not really analogous to the USA, given that no one else uses the demonym American, and everyone knows who you're talking about when you say American
At some point you got to read back through this conversation and think "man, I came off really fucking aggressive because someone said a date differently from how I do, this makes me look like a complete twat"
So no. But I refer you to the guide I linked before.
Actually yeah means yeah not no
Maybe try reading more than three words
So, no. But I can tell you one thing - your lot reminds me of Homer Simpson telling Lisa "yes Lisa, native Americans like us".
You are as much American as people from Brasil, Venezuela or Mexico. You are simply trying to appropriate the name which doesn't belong to you.
First, so I know that you read it, I'm going to repeat what I said earlier. At some point, you have to look back at this conversation and think "I got really fucking aggressive just because this guy said a date differently from how I do, and it makes me look like a twat."
Second, more important to my point, USian is not my demonym, and you don't get to decide that it is. That's really all I should have said this entire time.
Do you live in the USA? That means you are a USian. It is not that difficult.
No, I'm American.
Yes, you are. The same as for example people from Brasil or Mexico.
All these countries are in America, USians are the same Americans as Mexicans or Brazilians.