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10-31-2015, 11:32 AM   #76
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Unlike German, where everything that moves goes to the end.

10-31-2015, 02:48 PM   #77
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QuoteOriginally posted by Digitalis Quote
I vote duodecimal. with our standard time keeping methods, ask yourself: How many days are there in 5 months? Hmm? Which months, you ask? with a duodecimal number system, you needn't ask.
For a short time France attempted to convert to a decimal time system: 10 hours in a day, 100 minutes in an hour, 100 seconds in a minute*. Clocks were made to measure time this way.

*a decimal hour is obviously much longer than the traditional hour; the decimal minute is a little bit longer than the traditional minute, but the decimal second is shorter than its traditional counterpart. So "wait a minute" would give you more time, but "just a second" would give you less.
10-31-2015, 02:57 PM   #78
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QuoteOriginally posted by Sandy Hancock Quote
Putting a long unit before a short unit, and then the longest unit afterwards would be like recording time as minutes, seconds and hours.
This is probably the best example of demonstrating the illogic of MMDDYY, thank you.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always been under the impression that it was common for documents, at least in the old days, to be dated in the form of ...on the ddth day of MMMMMM, in the year yyyy.

---------- Post added 31-10-15 at 22:05 ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by reh321 Quote
The next thing we know, you'll want us to switch our periods and commas, and put the dollar sign at the end of the amount, writing $12,345.67 as 12.345,67$
Although universal consistency would be beneficial, at least in this case there is no particular logical advantage in one over the other, unlike dates, where MMDDYY fails to follow a hierarchical pattern.

Perhaps even more to the point: why do something differently from the rest of the world when there is no benefit in doing so? All it does is created endless confusion.

Last edited by bxf; 10-31-2015 at 03:23 PM.
10-31-2015, 03:10 PM - 2 Likes   #79
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If I recall correctly, this was part of the British surrender to the Americans at Yorktown, VA in 1781. Cornwallis, despite his objection, ultimately gave in and allowed the America Date Format clause (MM/DD/YYYY) to stand as part of the surrender agreement along with the American pronunciation of Jaguar (Jag-wahr).

10-31-2015, 03:45 PM   #80
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I think the example of currency sign is completely different from the date, because you are talking about position of unit of measure to the value, whilst in the case of date format you are talking about position of three different values based on hierarchy of their units of measure. These two examples are incomparable, I am afraid
10-31-2015, 04:23 PM   #81
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If you really wanted to have a "perfectly logical" date system, you would go with the East Asian/ISO 8601 system of Year/Month/Day. No one groups dates first by day, then by month, then by year. That would be the most illogical system of all. Just try and organize files on a computer, or even paper filing, like that (parent folder of day, sub-folder of month, sub-folder of year). In order to properly organize and locate dates, you start with the most general category (year), then go on to more specific sub-categories (month, day).

So why DD/MM/YYYY? In order to locate the date, you would have to read backwards to most Western scripts, right to left. So instead of being "perfectly logical", is it perhaps because... in colloquial speech you say "thirty-one (or thirty-first of) October, twenty fifteen"? And in the US we say "October thirty-first, twenty fifteen"? Maybe people think and write more like people around them talk, and have talked for centuries, rather than have a computer-like, perfectly organized system in their brain?

Last edited by Cannikin; 10-31-2015 at 05:00 PM.
10-31-2015, 05:01 PM   #82
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Eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month versus eleventh month on the eleventh day at the eleventh hour. Does it matter? Depending on your viewpoint - v-a-v MMDDYY versus DDMMYY - if it makes no difference, why change? OR: if it makes no difference, why not change? Might as well argue whether purple is better than lavender.

10-31-2015, 05:01 PM - 5 Likes   #83
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The introduction of a metric system and logical dating is just the start. The English language, on both sides of the waters, needs a total makeover. The question about English as an international lingua franca has been addressed by the European Commission. Im sure the Aussies and even the Americans will follow suite when they learn about the improvements suggested by the commission. Let me quote the press release:

EUrenglish
Important message from European headquarters. The European Union Commission have announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, however, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as Eurenglish.
In the first year, 's' will be used instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of the 'k'. Not only will this klear up konfusion but keyboards kan have one letter less.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome 'ph' will be replased by 'f'. This will make words like 'fotograf' 20 persent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful, and they should go.
By the fourth yer, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' by 'z' and 'w' by 'v'. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou', and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.
Ze drem vil finali kum tru!

Kjell
10-31-2015, 05:09 PM   #84
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N fct, t's pssbl t rd mst nglsh wtht vwls xcpt trmnl "y". lmntng th vwls wld grtly smplfy spllng nd shrtn bks, lttrs, mls, nd strng psts sch s ths n.
10-31-2015, 05:30 PM   #85
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QuoteOriginally posted by bilybianca Quote
The introduction of a metric system and logical dating is just the start. The English language, on both sides of the waters, needs a total makeover. The question about English as an international lingua franca has been addressed by the European Commission. Im sure the Aussies and even the Americans will follow suite when they learn about the improvements suggested by the commission. Let me quote the press release:

EUrenglish
Important message from European headquarters. The European Union Commission have announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, however, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as Eurenglish.
In the first year, 's' will be used instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of the 'k'. Not only will this klear up konfusion but keyboards kan have one letter less.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome 'ph' will be replased by 'f'. This will make words like 'fotograf' 20 persent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful, and they should go.
By the fourth yer, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' by 'z' and 'w' by 'v'. During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou', and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.
Ze drem vil finali kum tru!

Kjell
What kind of logic is that? Clearly the logical answer is to abandon all languages on earth, replace them with Esperanto and spell everything in the International Phonetic Alphabet. That way everyone would understand and pronounce everything the same way as everyone else in the world. Oh and ban all differing accents, as that would create unnecessary ambiguity.
10-31-2015, 05:45 PM   #86
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QuoteOriginally posted by Cannikin Quote
If you really wanted to have a "perfectly logical" date system, you would go with the East Asian/ISO 8601 system of Year/Month/Day.
Whenever a file needs a date to rank it (for instance, versions of the same spreadsheet with date-determined data) I use yyyymmdd, as in filename.20151031.

But numbers and file names are not language - at least not the spoken language in which people communicate. Individual Americans communicate nearly exclusively with other individual Americans, regardless of global business or diplomatic communication. America's economy is 81% closed, meaning 81% of America's economic activity occurs entirely within its own borders. So long as Americans are comfortable with English Units, America doesn't need the metric system.

Consequently Americans will use the number system they want to use. And they're pretty stubborn about letting someone else tell them another way is better than theirs - in fact that's a sure way to preclude broad adoption of the metric system in America. Just keep telling Americans your way is better than theirs.

If you want to absolutely, positively and permanently prevent a change there, tell Americans they are demonstrably too stupid to make the correct decision, the decision that is clearly in their best interest, and since you are smarter, more logical and rational than they are, you (whosoever you may be) will just make the decision that is in their best interest on their behalf. I mean after all, you can say, they'll eventually get accustomed to it, right?

Come to think of it - someone tried that line of reasoning in the 70's. All the highway signs had MPH and KPH in smaller letters or distance in miles, then in kilometers. Didn't work out very well, did it?

Last edited by monochrome; 11-01-2015 at 07:38 AM. Reason: Bring tense and pronouns into agreement
10-31-2015, 07:26 PM   #87
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Alas for the efforts of creating Esperanto, a language relentlessly logical in its grammar and 100% phonetic in its spelling. One and only one verb declination applied to any action word, no male/female nouns, one way to make all plurals, etc. etc. But it's been around for how long? More than half a century and who uses it for anything except an academic "consider this." Only the most deeply devoted think it's going anywhere, for most it's little more than trivia question: What is the only designed language? In the meantime, much of the western world at least bemoans the loss any any language. A tongue spoken by twenty five people may not survive another generation and something must be done to preserve it. How many countries have an official national language? (The USA does not). How many of those countries would be willing to make that language Esperanto? Within the Americas, how many languages existed before Europeans arrived? How many survive? Should they be allowed to survive, helped to survive, or supplanted by Esperanto, or English, or Spanish, or French, or Portuguese, or........? Six-thousand million people all speaking one uniform language? Not a snowflake's chance in a blast furnace. English has become the most common second language despite it's hopelessly illogical features, partly as a consequence of the British Empire, and partly a consequence of the outcome of WWII. For the moment, the world is stuck with it.
10-31-2015, 09:40 PM   #88
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God, help US from becoming Europe (what a mess!)*

*this not necessarily related to any form of measurement.
10-31-2015, 09:51 PM   #89
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QuoteOriginally posted by bilybianca Quote
The English language, on both sides of the waters, needs a total makeover.
11-01-2015, 12:06 AM   #90
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
…If you want to absolutely, positively and permanently prevent a change here, tell us we are demonstrably too stupid to make the correct decision, that is in our best interest, and since you are clearly smarter, more logical and rational than we are, you (and your minions) will just make the decision that is in our best interest on our behalf. I mean, after all, we'll eventually get accustomed to it, right?
When Australia officially adopted the Metric system of measurement in 1971, the sky didn't fall, and we did actually get used to it. In my occupation (engineering), a swathe of conversion constants disappeared overnight when the SI units were adopted, making calculations less subject to errors from that source. My complaint was that I'd just finished my undergraduate degree which involved using all those conversion constants – amen to that. There's no justifiable argument about it: the SI system is easier to use.

But who said logic has anything to do with this?

As for Europe being a mess: pot; kettle…
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