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Firstly official documents were written in English from the fifteenth century. I
don't care what the royal court did, and they probably spoke German as well in the
eighteenth century.
I neither agree nor disagree that the date format comes from French, but it did not
pass into English by the writing of official documents in French the eighteenth century.
Please don't stop posting here, I am sorry if I sound harsh. I have often been told
that I do not give enough leeway to people when they make mistakes (mistakes in my
opinion). I am sure I hav emade plenty mistakes of my own in this forum. I ought
to keep myself in check.
When I said 'master of the obvious', I meant in reference to your statement: 'If
I had to guess, I'd say the way Americans write month/day/year is their own or from
else where.' I would have thought that if the Americans did not invent their date
usage, then they would have had to borrow it from somewhere.
Again I am very sorry for my language, must be something wrong with me.
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Simon,
Are you here to confine the spectrum of participants in this forum? Is this also
part of your personality? What has to do with a university and arm chair experts?
You know nothing about me and I know nothing about you. However, it seems you are
implying that I should not be here to discuss things with others for your own personal
reasons. I don't know how old you are but if you are older than 6, you should know
you have to respect others. If you have something personally against me, just keep
it to youself since others might have problems with you that they do not directly
divulge to you.
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Rupert, you got your wires crossed. I said to "J" to lay off "you". Some people...
Can't get the staff these days.
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Simon,
Then, say it to J directly not in the forum. Otherwise, your purpose might be considered
to show it not only to J but also to others since the tone of your message is very
malicious and scheming.
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I give up. I thought it was very clear. What I meant is that our opinions here don't
require the rigour of academia.... Blimey.
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How can I ask J directly? This forum is our only means of communication.
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If you want to e-mail me, you can, but don't come on to me like that lech Richard.
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No thanks. Nothing personal but I prefer to have "e-pals" I've actually met. Call
me old fashioned...
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Same here, never know who you might be talking to. I might be in one of Her Majesty's
Hostelries as we speak.
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Simon,
My sincere apologies. I misunderstood. I was reading two email messages and writing
an article at a time during the time I was running a simulation. I'm not quite multi-task
orientated. My lame excuse. But, thank god, the simulation result was good.
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Simon,
You can ask J directly. No reason to hesitate, as far as I can see.
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The Royal Court?? Its what the people say that counts! English was used for some
time as J says in the 1400's maybe even before that, they were definitely not french,
if not English they were latin. All of Europe writes the date like in Britain or
France or Denmark etc etc. I just want to know though why the americans had to be
different and put it in no order at all, at least in Japan and Korea it is still
written in a logical order!
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Perhaps it is a Websterian invention to differentiate American form British. That
is the only actual explanation I can think of at the moment.
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A thought about the American prescription for writing dates that comes to mind is
that in the military, the date is written in the standard way. 12 Jun 02 or 12.06.02
on all my article 15's, leave forms and other documents, for example. But then again,
we also use the twenty-four hour clock...so; anyone know how that came about?
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According to Sybill "All of Europe writes the date like in Britain or France or Denmark
etc etc." This is what I too would have guessed. I would have also concluded from
this that in South America and Africa European influence would have determined that
the same rule is followed. This is the case in Australia and New Zealand.
However, Rupert, you claim that "In many other languages, the American way is also
quite common." Is Sybill wrong about Europe or are you taking about non-European
languages? Which other languages are you refering to? Please give us some examples.
I don't know of anybody besides English-speaking North Americans who write the date
as month/day/year.
On US passports and (according to Iggy) in the US military the date is written in
the standard (day/month/year) way. It is the same on official Canadian documents.
It is only logical to write the date in either an ascending or a descending order.
I don't think we needed the French to tell us this.
It seems that the day/month/year style is the official style even in North America
but the American public still sticks to their muddled order. Do you really think
that the Royal Court had that much influence on how the English public not only wrote
but said the date?
I'm not flat out saying that your theory is bollocks, Rupert, but there was an English
language and there were dates before the Norman conquest. I'd have guessed that
the date would have been spoken as day, month then year for centuries in English,
well before the French came to power.
It seems to me that the month/day/year ordering is very much an American invention
and it could indeed have been done, maybe by Webster, to differentiate Americans
from the British like J suggested. I could be wrong but I very much doubt that it
was the more original English style which was somehow wiped out by the Norman Royal
Court.
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