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Freedom Clock

domsson.github.io

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Re: Freedom Clock

#181

Post by Pxtl »

dragonwriter wrote: post #28
Pxtl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slash means "of". D/M/Y or Y-M-D. Hell, the weird American "write it like you say it month dayeth of year" would be fine if they didn't use slashes. Sure it doesn't sort well but at least it wouldn't be ambiguous. Nobody would be confused if today was written 03-25/2023.

> Slash means "of". No, it doesn't. I mean, in certain contexts it can, but it doesn't exclusively in general, any more than it means “and/or” exclusively in general (though, it does mean “and/or” in “and/or” which probably isn’t something you should think about too much.) It can just be a separator, as it is in American dates.

Fair point about and/or, but there's still a consistent pattern to that usage - also he/she, etc. I'm having trouble coming up with cases besides US dates where it isn't used to mean one of these two things:

"of": like one half (1/2) meaning one of two, or km/h meaning kilometers per hour, or page 14/55. In these contexts it means something within something else. In both cases there's the strong mathematical connotation of a numerator and a denominator.

"or": like in and/or or he/she.

The symbol has clear connotations, and the American date-format deviates from those.

Re: Freedom Clock

#182

Post by capitanazo77 »

warent wrote: post #42

One thing I've come to learn is that American formats are human-friendly rather than machine-friendly. Our date system is like the Fahrenheit system; it works well when thinking like a human. in Fahrenheit, you just think of it in terms of 50 being the middle, "not cold and not hot". Then you understand 80 is high warm, closing in on hot, etc. Similarly for our date system, we lead with names and important informatio…

In Celsius 20 is fine. And your clothes change 10 degrees up or down. That’s it. Now you know Celsius.

Re: Freedom Clock

#183

Post by kebman »

warent wrote: post #129
kebman wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me, but can you please expand upon how Fahrenheit is easier "when thinking like a human"? Why 50? Why not 100? Why not simply use something that is easily compared, such as the freezing and boiling point of water? You know... Celsius?

you may as well ask why 100% doesn't represent "half". Fahrenheit is best thought of as a range from 0 to 100, the numbers outside of which are extreme outliers

Outliers of what? People's opinion of hot and cold?

Re: Freedom Clock

#184

Post by poiuyt098 »

warent wrote: post #42

One thing I've come to learn is that American formats are human-friendly rather than machine-friendly. Our date system is like the Fahrenheit system; it works well when thinking like a human. in Fahrenheit, you just think of it in terms of 50 being the middle, "not cold and not hot". Then you understand 80 is high warm, closing in on hot, etc. Similarly for our date system, we lead with names and important informatio…

so to tell someone a meeting's at 8:45, do you write 1/4:9 because that's how humans say it, or still the non-stupid way?

Re: Freedom Clock

#185

Post by sameerds »

snorfalorpagus wrote: post #177
soerxpso wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Middle-Endian is how it tends to be said out loud in English. Even in countries that would write 25/3/23, you still usually answer "What day is it?" out loud with "It's March 25th" rather than "It's the 25th of March." And after that point, the year going at the end makes sense because people are generally not asking what year it is. The only thing that makes it confusing at all is Europe choosing to do it differentl…

This isn't true in British English, at least in my experience. We'd say "25th of March". The "of" would be omitted when writing a sentence, but you'd include it when reading aloud.

Same in India. And not just when speaking or writing English, but in some the regional languages too.

Re: Freedom Clock

#186

Post by nephanth »

graypegg wrote: post #74
Krasnol wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only is human-firendly if you grew up with it, so it's rather "American-friendly". > You don't say "25th Apartment", you say "Apartment 25", We say 25th March in German. Saying the whole date follows the importance: day, month, year: fünfundzwanzigster märz zweitausenddreiundzwanzig.

Also the standard in French. Day (optional ordinal) Month.

Optional ordinal? Afaik for some reason day 1 is always ordinal (1er mai) and the others are always cardinal (25 mars)

Re: Freedom Clock

#187

Post by jdlyga »

This only makes sense from a euro-centric view of the world. Month before Day is most compliant with the international standard for date (ISO 8601). We use Year-Month-Day fairly frequently in the United States too (though the most common is Month/Day/Year).

Re: Freedom Clock

#188

Post by graypegg »

nephanth wrote: post #186
graypegg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the standard in French. Day (optional ordinal) Month.

Optional ordinal? Afaik for some reason day 1 is always ordinal (1er mai) and the others are always cardinal (25 mars)

Sorry yes you’re right, “optional” was the wrong word to use.

Re: Freedom Clock

#189

Post by [deleted] »

Ukv wrote: post #87
sfeng wrote: post #37

To play devil's advocate, the American format aligns with how (American's at least) speak the date "March 24th, 2022".

"4th [of] July, 2023" and "July [the] 4th, 2023" are both valid - I'd bet there's a correlation between spoken order and written order, but not sure which caused which (or maybe mutually reinforcing).

[deleted]
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