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#136423 04/01/03 11:26 AM
Joined: Aug 2001
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pauluk Offline OP
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A non-electrical question for all our international members: What's the generally used method for writing dates in your country?

I think that everybody here will have realized that the normal American format is month/day/year, so today, April 1, 2003 would be written 4-1-03 or 4/1/03.

In the U.K., the format is day/month/year, the most usual punctuation being a dash, dot, or slash, i.e. 1-4-03, 1.4.03, 1/4/03.

I believe that the order is the same throughout Western Europe, but I've sometimes seen dates from the Continent written with Roman numerals for the month, e.g. 1-iv-03. I don't know how common this is.

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C-H Offline
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The Swedish and only logical way to write today's date is:

2003-04-01

If you want to specify what time it is simply write 18.55 (or "kl. 18.55" if it isn't obvious that it's time)

The "Posted" field would in the Swedish format have read: 2003-04-01 18.55

In handwriting the date is often written as: 1/4 or 1/4-03 Not as logical, but more in line with the British way of writing it.

BTW: Are you guys on Daylight savings time?

{Edited twice to change the year from 2002 and 2004 to 2003. [Linked Image]}

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 04-01-2003).]

Joined: Aug 2002
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When my time came to enlist in the US Military (I was rejected due to extremely bad myopia), all the paperwork was filled:

YY/MM/DD

Joined: Jul 2002
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Paul,
We have just returned to Non-Daylight-saving
time, sure knocks you around a wee bit, too.
We write our date dd/mm/yyy.
It can get a bit confusing, if you are talking about a day earlier on in the year,
for example, 04/03/2003, is it the 3rd of April 2003 or the 4th of March?. [Linked Image]
Wish the system was the same everywhere!. [Linked Image]

Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 2,498
T
Member
2. 4. 2003, 2. 4. 03, 02. 04. 2003
10:01 Uhr.
2. IV. 2003 is very oldfashioned.
On invoices etc. sometimes also 03/04/02 or with hyphens instead of the slashes. Personally I prefer the first version, without the leading zero.

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pauluk Offline OP
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Interesting. I think there are one or two other places (Japan?) which use YY/MM/DD as well.

On the time format, the U.K. is kind of middleground. The 24-hour clock is used much more commonly than in the United States (on bus and train timetables, for example), but not as often as in Europe. You won't hear people talk about going home at 18 hours, like you might in Europe, for example.

Ranger,
You sometimes use Y/M/D on invoices? Isn't that rather confusing? How could somebody know whether 03/04/02 is April 3, 2002 or April 2, 2003? [Linked Image]

C-H,
Yes, the U.K. went onto daylight savings (British Summer Time) last weekend. Changes back the end of October.

Joined: Dec 2001
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No idea. I can only rember getting a laughing fit when I first saw "96-11-03". Probably the only way to distinguish are the hyphens instead of the dots.
We changed to daylight savings in the night from saturday to sunday. One lost hour of sleep, ugh!

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pauluk Offline OP
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Not a problem last century, I guess. Only rrom for confusion since 2001!

Boy, it seems weird talking about 19xx being "last century." [Linked Image]

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C-H Offline
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Oh, one other way of writing dates in Sweden is used for writing date of birth: yymmdd

Our SSN or ID number is based on this: Date of birth plus four digits making up a checksum and indicating gender.

Thus a boy born today would get a number something like this 030404-0118

(I haven't calculated the checksum, so it's most likely not a real number)

This number is used instead of your name everywhere: Tax authority, education, medical care, you name it.

Joined: Jul 2002
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C-H,
Is that a Social Security Number?.
It's strange but we don't have them over here, maybe we do and I don't have one!.

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