A major post on Berlin is in the works, but may not make it in time for the absurdly juxtaposed anniversaries of the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and Kristallnacht (1938), both November 9. But that reminds me ...
I wonder how many Americans are aware that when they refer to "9/11," they are speaking with an American dialect, and that their friends in Britain and Australia and elsewhere are having to translate. In most of the world, including Australia, dates are written "day/month," so "9/11" means today, November 9.
Americans are used to "9/11" as a kind of shorthand designed to reference a trauma without invoking it, rather like the word "holocaust." But unlike "holocaust," 9/11 keeps rolling around in the calendar, so the shorthand use of "9/11" for the WTC attacks carries a slight whiff of linguistic imperialism that is clearly unintentional and yet can't be shaken off. "9/11? 9th of November? What about it?" "Oh, you mean the American 9/11."
The London Underground bombings happened on July 7, and the Brits occasionally refer to the event as "7/7." If the month and date hadn't been identical, they'd have had to take a stand for their way of writing dates against the American one. As it happens, the terrorists chose a date singularly suited to Transatlantic harmony. It shows they're not all that clever after all.
Simply contrasting American to British and Australian usage fails to highlight how idiosyncratic the American usage really is. According to the following wikipedia article, America is one of only 6 countries in the world that use the ordering mm/dd/yyyy and just 4 that do not also use either of the logically ordered formats dd/mm/yyyy or yyyy/mm/dd. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_date
Posted by: Philip Gleeson | 2009.11.09 at 22:32
That clearly wasn't a German wondering what the 9th of November could possibly be about.
Posted by: J.D. Hammond | 2010.01.09 at 05:59
A) My habit, partly for clarity and partly due to working with a large number of non-American customers, is to use a mixed format - 22 Feb 10 or 22 Feb 2010 (period after "Feb" or other month optional). This is similar to the default format in the Oracle DBMS (
http://www.thewellroundedgeek.com/2007/09/oracle-default-date-format-oracle.html
). I consider an all number format of any kind to be a problem due to possible ambiguity.
B) There's a subtle sort of pun in our use of "9/11" as shorthand for the attacks of 11 Sept.'01 (formal mode, 11 Sep 01 minimal). Americans use "911" as our standard calling code for emergency services.
Posted by: Ted King | 2010.02.22 at 13:08
My apologies. I should have said "This is similar, albeit flipped, ..." at the end of part (A) instead of just "This is similar ...".
[Oracle] YY-MON-DD vs. [DMY] DD Mon YY or DD Mon YYYY
Avoid :
[U.S.] MM/DD/YY or MM/DD/YYYY
[Non-U.S.] DD/MM/YY or DD/MM/YYYY
Posted by: Ted King | 2010.02.22 at 13:35