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Question for Josh Lalonde (and others)
How are dates commonly written and spoken in Canadian English? I've read some sources saying that Canada uses both m/d/y and d/m/y.
Anyone else, feel free to chime in about dates (for example: the order of the numbers, article and preposition use, cardinal versus ordinal, etc). ;-)
According to Wikipedia: "(All 3 main types are used in Canada- in French and in English)": those being mm/dd/yy(yy); dd/mm/yy(yy), and ISO 8601 yyyy-mm-dd
They even sometimes use this other form:
yyyy-mmm-dd (year, month, day) Using the yyyy-mmm-dd format, the 30th of December 2006 would be written as 2006-Dec-30. The yyyy-mmm-dd format is used by: * Canada (as in 2006-JAN-01) --- (no other countries are listed for this format)
Yes, there is great confusion in date systems here. I especially hate when they are given all in numbers, and you have something like 06 11 2007 (or worse, the year could be 07). Is this 11 June or 6 November? Who knows! For that reason, I always write out the month or use an abbreviation. On forms and such where you need to use numbers, the boxes mark which one is the day and which the month.
In speech, we usually say "month #th" eg. "November sixth". Saying "the sixth of November" sounds a little stilted to me. I think this is the same as the US (?).
Josh,
You are right. In the US (for civilian use anyway) it is month, day, year. (Today would be 05/13/07 or March 5, 2007. However! For US military usage it is 13/05/07 or 13 March 2007. Don’t know for sure how this came about but assume the military probably changed during WWII so that they would be co-ordinated with the European Allies. I defer to the Europeans and put day first, but always do as you do and spell out the month so as not to confuse by countrymen. This drives my wife nuts because no else, outside of the military does this. I don’t mind being deliberately contrary anyway!
<<In speech, we usually say "month #th" eg. "November sixth". Saying "the sixth of November" sounds a little stilted to me. I think this is the same as the US (?).>>
Yeah, that's how we say it as well. <<Is this 11 June or 6 November? Who knows!>> So in Canada, dates are generally written out like "6 November" (day, then month), but pronounced "November sixth" (month, then day)? I actually like that system, because it combines the more internationally compatible written form with the less stilted spoken form.
And just to clarify, the first "bump" was written by me, but the other two were written by trolls. ;-)
I don't there really is a "standard" form for written dates here. I think my usage (6 November 2007) is somewhat in the minority, but it isn't unknown or even weird. We're kind of caught in the crossroads between American and British usage, and maybe French has some influence too, so basically all forms are acceptable. I remeber some usage guides preferring my format, because you don't have to use a comma (as opposed to November 6, 2007). It's really a matter of personal choice or style; I remember choosing to write it 6 November back in Grade 7 or 8, both to follow the French form and to avoid an unnecessary comma. Now I just do it cause that's what I'm used to. Also, it makes things easier when all of my class notes have the same date format, whether they're in English or French.
Of course, the most logical way to write the date is:
Year, month, day Hence 2007 March 13 When we write out the time, the hour comes first, then the minute, then the seconds.
>> Of course, the most logical way to write the date is:
Year, month, day Hence 2007 March 13 << What does that have to do with logic? And does it really matter? As long as the month is spelled out, can't you just scan the line containing the date just by glancing at it? 2007 March 13 March 13, 2007 13 March 2007 Can't you just look at the whole thing at once? It doesn't take all that much mental processing to get the month date and year out of any of those listed above? |