Talk:Date and time representation by country

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Sweden[edit]

It should be mentioned that in some common speech in sweden, the hour is left out. 15:30 could be said as "halv" ("Half"). It's not very specific due to the short length of an hour, but it's commonly used in speech. Ran4 20:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds similar to the English use of "half past". I presume a lot of languages have that. N4m3 (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The map indicates that we use 12 hour clock in spoken language in Sweden, but we actually use both 12 and 24 hour clock. With the 12 hour clock we say "prick" (sharp), "halv" (half), "kvart i" (quarter to), etc, and with 24 hour we say hours followed by minutes (for example "0 3" or "0 3 0 0" for 03:00, and "15 och 30" or "15 30" for 15:30). 12 hour clock is always rounded to nearest 5 minutes (15:42 is said as "20 i 4", not "18 i 4"). --Crashie (talk) 10:55, 23 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Military[edit]

If military time is spoken with the words hours, than shouldn't be the 1440-hour clock? Zginder 21:25, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Working for the US Navy, we speak that time as "fourteen forty hours". The top of the hour is spoken as "hundred hours", such as "thirteen hundred hours" for 1300. Groink 07:38, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

British dates[edit]

How do you say a date like 31 December, 1999. I am from the USA so I am wondering because in the US it is writin the way we say it. December 31, 1999, is said, "December 31st. 1999." while to say to the other way would be longer, "The 31st. of December, 1999." Zginder 12:17, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"It is written the way it is said" is usually an illusion and not very helpful if you want to document usage exactly, as your change from an cardinal number in the written form to an ordinal number in the spoken form illustrates.
Not being a native English speaker (only have lived here for a decade), I would say: the English written date "31 December 1999" (no comma!) would most commonly be pronounced as either "thirty-first december nineteen ninety-nine" or "thirty-one december nineteen ninety-nine". I have also heard "the thirty-first of december nineteen ninety-nine", but I do not believe this version with determiner and predicate is very common today and it has a slightly old-fashioned ring to me. You might say or even write that if you deliberately tried to sound old-fashioned (e.g., on a stylish wedding invitation). Markus Kuhn 12:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How did in the U.S. historically the day end up between the month and the year? It is a most unusual order.

Because it is said that way. Zginder 22:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You should have said "because it is always said that way in the USA". In all other countries the day is always said first, then the month. i.e. 31/12/2010 is said "31st of December Two Thousand and Ten" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.162.154 (talk) 14:08, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Same question again: how did saying it that way arise? It is (was?) not said that way in British English. −Woodstone

I live in the United States. And I've never once spoken the day of the month using ordinal suffixes, such as "December thirty-first". I've always spoken it as "December thirty-one". I live in Hawaii. Groink 07:41, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I live in the north-east USA and we say it using ordinals when we say the name of the month, but with cardnals with number months. Zginder 20:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, time for an entry from a British English speaker as to common usage for spoken dates. The ordinal is used for day and month if reading the numbers, so "31/12/2006" is read as "the thirty first of the twelfth", followed by either "two thousand and six" or "twenty oh six" for the year, depending on preference. If the name of the month is used, then it's "thirty-first of December"; but this may be reversed, with the word "the" inserted: "December the thirty-first" followed, once again, by the year as per preference. [JerryT 16:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)]

I was taught (in the UK without American influence) to write "December 31st, 2006" and to say it the same way. This was common in British English a hundred years age, but is now rare less common, and some English people seem to think it is American.
I found the following examples of British usage in a short search of Google Books.
Each of the following contains the old British date format “November 5th, yyyy” and are undisputably exclusively British in origin and authorship.
This format is rapidly dying out becoming less common in the UK.
Everyone i know in the UK would say 31st December 1999 (the thirty-first of December nineteen ninety-nine); and 23rd July 2006 (the twenty-third of July two-thousand and six) I am from near London 92.8.148.77 (talk) 20:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Private Correspondence of Thomas Raikes with the Duke of Wellington ...‎- Page 95 (Published 1861)
  • Proceedings of the Medical Society of London‎- Page 15 (Published 1880)
  • Transactions of the Obstetrical Society of London‎- Page 275 (Published 1880)
  • The Manuscripts of the Marquess Townshend ... – Page 185 (Published 1887)
  • Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society – Page 229 (Published 1899)
  • Journal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists‎- Page 291 (Published 1904)
  • The Aeronautical Journal‎- Page 12 (Published 1904)
(from a search for “November 5th,” in books.google.com) Dbfirs 10:18, April 19th, 2009 (UTC)


Why do they say twenty to three when they mean 14.45?? (You mean 14:40?) Dbfirs 10:18, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is it true that "in private life Sunday is often preferred" as the first day of the week? As a Brit, this seems to me to be quite an old-fashioned view. In my experience, people tend to think of Monday as the first day of the week, as it is the usual day for going back to work or school, followed by the remaining four weekdays and finally two days off at the end of the week. --Listsdraft 16:18, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Towards the end of the date section, it says:

"In business, the beginning of the week is usually considered to be Monday; but in private life Sunday is often preferred."

Since when has this been the case? I've never heard anyone refer to the beginning of the week as Sunday, it's always Monday in both business and private life. Almost all calenders sold here also have the week beginning on a monday. Sneyton (talk) 22:19, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not all! You can still buy calendars starting on Sunday (the New Testament's "first day of the week"), but I agree that they are getting less common, and I have never seen a diary in this format. Dbfirs 10:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could be a regional thing. I live in West Wales, and have lived in the South of England, and would start my week off with a Sunday. In addition, disagree with the way to write dates - I'm only 19, but in primary school, I remember being taught to write dates with a slash, OR a hyphen, OR a dot. I.e., 20-05-1999, 20.05.1999, and 20/05/1999. While the UK may be signed up to a certain standard, not that I've looked into this, in common usage, with people my own age at any rate (through experience in college and university) all three methods are used.86.31.139.125 (talk) 15:00, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I live in Australia and in Grade 1, Primary School (when I was 6) I was taught the days of the week were Sunday through Saturday. However, I thought this was false and would recite them Monday through Sunday under my breath while everyone else would say it "incorrectly". To start the week on a Sunday is a Christian fallacy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.162.154 (talk) 14:13, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Japan[edit]

It would seem that this acticle should reference the Japan articles - Japanese era name Japanese calendar and the use of times beyond 24:00 (e.g. 27:00 for 03:00 when referring to an event starting the previous day) which is alluded to in 24-hour clock.

[[User:Boltonm|Bolton] 18:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC+9)]

Canada[edit]

When Canada uses numbers to write their dates, is it in the dd-mm-yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy format? --124.106.134.220 08:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In informal usage, I've seen it both ways in equal measure. And on passport forms, it's requested in "yyyy-mm-dd" format. I'm not sure there'd be any government policy on it, would there? --Lonelywurm 07:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Canada uses the ISO8601 format ("yyyy-mm-dd") officially. That's why it appears thus on government documents. Bushcutter (talk) 22:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]


The article states that the DD/MM/YY format is still widely used. I think this is true. The article goes on to state that this is especially true in Quebec (without citation). In my experience, francophones in Quebec use the new YYYY-MM-DD more than the rest of Canada! I think this should be removed unless someone can produce a source of some kind.Ratberryjam (talk) 00:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

United States[edit]

The article says that, for instace, 1:55 is pronounce "five 'til two" (which is common), as well as "five until two" which is vitually unheard of. Without any citation of this form, I think I will delete it. If anyone can produce a reference for this obscure form, I will let it stand. I cannot find it in actual use anywhere.

I would say "five to two" is also common —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.162.154 (talk) 14:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why is the USA unique in using the month-day-year format?JohnC (talk) 06:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not from the US, but the use of "of" instead of "off" seems strange - is it correct? (E.g. in "5 till 1" or "5 of 1" etc). Also, in this example "till" is short for "until", so should probably be "til" or "'til" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Simonrob (talk • contribs) 17:08, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Austria, Germany, Switzerland[edit]

The sample: For example, "dreiviertel drei" (three-quarter three, see table below) stands for "three quarters of the third hour have passed". is incorrect. Correct is the later reference in the table of "dreiviertel drei" being 14:45. So the sample should state something like "three quaters of the second hour have passed". While that would be technically correct it is confusing and doesn't help much as an example. Therefore I have not changed the entry. Hovewer, this needs to be addressed and corrected.

To me the description looks consistent. The first hour is the one starting at 00:00 (or in the afternoon 12:00). So the third hour is the one between 02:00 and 03:00, making said time 02:45 (or if you like 14:45). −Woodstone 15:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

consistent? yes it is. confusing? Yes! 80% of German speakers will have no idea what time you mean when you say "dreiviertel drei". therefore it would never be used in any written german so one should always use the relative version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.196.203.94 (talk) 20:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

80% is way too high, maybe 40%. It's used in "...Bayern, Baden-Württemberg, Rheinland-Pfalz, Hessen, Thüringen, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Teilen von Niedersachsen sowie in Berlin.", these are 11 out of 16 states. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.161.232.246 (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It’s also used in parts of Austria (see: faql.de). There are some other relative variants, the majority of German speakers wouldn’t understand (examples for 5:15h): “Viertel ab fünf” (quarter from(?) five—Switzerland), “Viertel über fünf” (quarter over/above five—parts of Austria), “Viertel auf sechs” (quarter on six—southern Bayern, western Austria, deprecated; there’s also a small region near Kassel, where “Viertel auf sechs” means 5:45h) --139.18.189.154 (talk) 09:22, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Let's not make a djihad out of this: I think since this belongs to the (variant) ways of telling the time in German, the issue should be mentioned---and in fact I even mentioned the fact that there is some controversy among the two usages, but we should leave it at that. Cheers and have New Year's greetings to everyone! (my two cents) --~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by WernR (talk • contribs) 17:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The standard phrase used for the time is the phrase in the news of the ARD (Tagesschau/ Tagesthemen), ergo it is "Viertel vor Drei" or "Vierzehn Uhr Fünfundvierzig". These news influenze "Hochdeutsch" the most. The other varieties are a relict of the DDR or alternatively the dying "Bayrisch". So the points are: 1) "dreiviertel drei" is really uncommon 2) The region of the DDR isn't mentioned. And Switzerland should be separated to many differnces. Greetz from Germany :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.199.199.217 (talk) 20:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As someone above mentioned correctly, there is a clear divide in Germany as can be referenced here: http://www.philhist.uni-augsburg.de/de/lehrstuehle/germanistik/sprachwissenschaft/ada/runde_7/f11e/index.html. "Dreiviertel drei" may be uncommon in the northwest of Germany, but is standard in at least half of Germany.

I think Switzerland should be removed from this section. I used to live over there and first of all not everyone in Switzerland speaks German. Also, many things that are true in Germany don't apply to the German-speaking part of switzerland. Use of the 24-hour clock is restricted to writing and non-dialect speech ("Standard German"), which is rarely spoken in Switzerland unless people are speaking with non-natives.You'll NEVER EVER hear anyone say "20.00 Uhr" or anything like that... ever —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.251.85.74 (talk) 09:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The same can be said about many regions in Germany where people speak standard German to outsiders only. Also, it is obviously some kind of brainwashing when (some) people say 19.30 when they mean half past seven. 60 years of watching Tagesschau changed a lot of language use.

O' Clock[edit]

An anon edit on 2 March 2006 changed all occurances of "o'clock" to "O'Clock". This looks very unusual to me and clearly requires a reference. Markus Kuhn 00:29, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

date and time articles[edit]

Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about putting the content to the Time in Xy articles which are often very short anyway. standardised sections could be created.

Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:45, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion it makes more sense to merge all the "time in xx" articles into this one. Since the information for each country is short, it does not make sense to brake it into minute subsections. −Woodstone 21:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you really must split up the article into per-country articles, then they should be bound together by a common navigation template. Markus Kuhn 09:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The "Time in X" articles are currently about time zones, not date and time notations. Markus Kuhn 09:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Australia[edit]

In the Australia time section, it says that a full-stop is the preferred time separator, but that the colon is also common. I disagree with this. I think the colon is far more common than the full-stop. I'm going to put citation needed. Dgen 06:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about other countries, but one thing that really annoys me about time references in Australia is the growing practice of writing "12 pm" for noon and "12 am" for midnight. Apart from anything else, it's etymologically wrong, since "pm" means "post meridien", i.e. "after noon" in Latin, so "12 pm" means "12 after noon" (is that midnight?!!) I believe we should change to using the 24-hour clock for all civil purposes, which would remove this anomaly and be much less ambiguous generally. As that isn't going to happen anytime soon, I do hope this practice is stamped out.Shrdlu junction 04:58, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is pure nonsense. 12 AM is midnight, 12 PM is the middle of the day - get over it. Perhaps you would prefer everyone to write 12:00:01 AM and 12:00:01 PM to make sure it really is "correct". What difference does one second after the hour make? Everyone understands that 12 PM is "after noon" just the same as you would understand 12:01 PM really is in the afternoon. Midnight is not "after noon" as it is the beginning of the next day i.e. 0:00:00. If you really want to be technically correct then "after noon" will change every single day depending on the highest point of the sun - so at he height of summer this would be around 2pm.

I just changed the colon/full-stop thing around. The colon is a million times more common.203.13.90.2 (talk) 01:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've very rarely seen the full-stop in use at all (other than for sub-second mentions of time), and am surprised it even rates a mention. Certainly it seems odd that the colon (which is the most common usage) requires a citation, while the mention of the full-stop doesn't. Excel's date formats (which vary by language), only lists 3 or 4 formats for English-AU, all with a colon. The only languages that a (very quick) look revealed use the full-stop is Italian (Swiss), French (Belgium), French (Luxembourg), French (Monaco), French (Switzerland). Of course, Excel is hardly an authority on such matters, but if the full-stop were in common usage I would expect it to appear here. Finally (it may just be me) there seems to have been a shift toward 24HR time in Australia over the last decade or so - in fact I have met people who seem to struggle with 12hour time.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.91.9.153 (talk) 23:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

General week[edit]

In the UK at least, and it seems very probably elsewhere, there are three distinct contexts for the Week :

  • Business - Mon-Sun very common, I believe
  • Ordinary - Sun-Sat traditional, Mon-Sun increasingly common
  • Church - Genesis notwithstanding, the Prayer Book presumes Sun-Sat. Church diaries?

Perhaps each of the three should be included in each "national" section; certainly it should not be assumed that there is always a uniform preference.

82.163.24.100 16:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sun-Sat is broadly consistent with Genesis. --Rumping 12:21, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Consistent with the Jewish tradition of resting on the Sabbath = Saturday, but not consistent with the Constantine I-decreed Christian tradition of resting on the Sabbath = Sunday. Check Sunday#Sunday_and_the_Sabbath for a detailed discussion regarding the Christian confusion on this issue. Markus Kuhn 14:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just scroll up to Sunday#Position during the week and it shows that having Sunday (the Lord's Day) as a day of rest need not alter the first day of the week for Christians. The New Testament is clear that Easter and the empty tomb was the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:9, Luke 24:1, John 20:1). Moving the first day to Monday is a secular tradition to ensure that a weekend is contained within a single week.--Rumping 02:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Globalization[edit]

In many wikipedia articles, both the British and American versions of the date appear. Since our world is becoming more dependent upon cultural lines, it may become necessary for the entire world to have one date format. I wonder which format in wikipedia is proper for a multicultural reference. Will 9/11 be known as 11/9 in the future in America? For now, I suggest all US articles should have the proper format, but this issue will become more important. If September 11 becomes 11 September in this country (US), it would probably be a pretty big deal since it is quite a famous date. Times are a changin' and international influence, especially in the academic field is censoring away another one of America's identities- as evident on the Declaration of Independence and Statue of Liberty.

Check out ISO 8601 for the most sensible global long-term solution. Markus Kuhn 00:53, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also note that ISO 8601 does not chance, only changes 9/11 to 09-11 not 11/9, and 9/11/2001 to 2001-09-11. Zginder (talk) (Contrib) 14:30, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Off topic problem[edit]

The article has a rather bad off topic problem. Note that phrases such as "half past seven" and the like are not notation, and are as such off-topic in this article. The same applies to descriptions of pronunciation and particular words for divisions of the day. GregorB (talk) 20:16, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think, especially in this particular context, verbal pronunciation is an important practical aspect of a written notation, and would not describe it as off-topic. How do you pronounce 2009-02-18 in different languages? Markus Kuhn (talk) 15:07, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article is a joke[edit]

I've read about a few countries and can only laugh. Since when has it been a standard to round to the nearest 5 minutes? And if you look under Denmark you will see a lot of text with angle brackets. This article should be deleted and the category should be used instead! --Daniel-Dane (talk) 17:24, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It has been standard in the UK (and I expect in most other countries) to round to the nearest five minutes in everyday usage for the last two hundred years. Prior to that, it was standard to round to the nearest quarter of an hour, and to the nearest hour before that. Modern usage is beginning to round to the nearest minute. Sometimes I round to the nearest second when asked the time, but my precision always raises either a smile or a strange look! Dbfirs 08:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is only common NOT to round to the nearest five minutes since the introduction of digital clocks. If I am referring to an analogue clock I will round to the nearest five, but if I refer to a digital time I will say the time exactly i.e. "It is ten twenty eight P M.". The use of analogue clocks is probably in great decline though due to its inconvenience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.162.154 (talk) 14:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Iran?[edit]

I would have thought there’d be a section here, but not finding much on the Web, I guess this was less of a big deal than I remember it being.

Also, does this article render this section obsolete? Should they be merged or should there be a see: main link? —Wiki Wikardo 17:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Organize by region, not just alpha?[edit]

Since formats roughly correlate with regions of the world, it would make sense to organize the article this way, noting that East Asia is a YMD region, etc., then noting exceptions.

The alphabetical organization by country is useful only if you have a single country in mind and simply want to look up an answer for that country. On the other hand if you really have a business application you are not going to want to take Wikipedia as an authoritative source anyway. --JWB (talk) 20:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arab World[edit]

We are missing a huge Sprachraum that composes one of the six official UN languages. Can someone help with this? Warmest Regards, :)—thecurran Speak your mind my past 16:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC) I am currently being taught to use d-m-yyyy format for Arabic-language letters, which agrees with Arabic being a strongly right-branching (little-endian) language like French or Spanish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.182.212.56 (talk) 16:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But given that Arabic is written right-to-left, isn't the above example actually big endian? CodeCat (talk) 22:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Australia - AS/NZS 3802:1997 withdrawn[edit]

The article says that "Australia has signed up to use the ISO 8601 notation through the national standard AS 3802:1997", but according to this web site AS 3802:1997 was withdrawn in 2007. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Australia now uses numbering that copies the ISO numbers and this is reflected on the same site in the current numbering which is AS ISO 8601-2007 (see http://infostore.saiglobal.com/store/Details.aspx?ProductID=343418). Thus Australia still uses ISO 8601 but the national standard reflecting that is now updated and differently numbered. It seems from info on the same site that Australia first signed up to ISO 8601 through AS 3802:1989. Therealsleepycat (talk) 15:18, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Serbia[edit]

Everything is correct. I'm from Serbia and I have nothing to add. GoghBGD (talk) 13:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Map is wrong for Sweden[edit]

The map shows Sweden using either YYYY-MM-DD or DD-MM-YYYY. This contradicts the text that says that Sweden uses YYYY-MM-DD. I've never seen DD-MM-YYYY used at all in Sweden. YYYY-MM-DD and YY-MM-DD is the dominant forms.

I wouldn't know how to update the map, but somebody else should. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.225.222.10 (talk) 16:09, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorting by language rather than by country[edit]

It seems rather strange to me that the different sections are named and sorted by country. More often than not, notation and pronunciation of times is tied to the language, not to the country. Differences in customs between two countries speaking the same language are usually much smaller than those between two different languages (whether in the same country or not). Case in point would be the usage in East Africa, which is strongly language-dependent as is mentioned in the article. So I think the article should sort by language, and subsections should be created where norms differ in different countries speaking the same language (i.e. English in the UK versus English in the US). CodeCat (talk) 17:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"More often than not, notation and pronunciation of times is tied to the language." Are you sure? What is your evidence for that? I would rather guess the opposite, since formats are often standardized by the STATE bureaucracy. For example, in the case of computer keyboards, in Switzerland, it is standardized over ALL Swiss languages, but different from the keyboard in use in France or Germany. Nahabedere (talk) 16:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But this isn't about keyboards, it's about dates and times. And those do tend to be particular to each language, even if they are not always. CodeCat (talk) 07:37, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Example dates[edit]

I've just changed the Canadian entry so that the example date (written here in ISO 8601 format) is 2009-12-31 instead of 2009-06-09. In text that illustrates the format – eg ... the European dd/MM/(yy)yy (e.g., 31/12/(20)09) date format ... The American MM/dd/(yy)yy (e.g., 12/31/(20)09) date format ... – I think it makes more sense to use values that are unambiguous so that we can clearly see the format in the numbers.

I suggest that it would be better if we used the same example date(s) throughout the entire article. Currently we have different dates in different sections. However I don't have the time right now to go through and check the entire article. Any volunteers? Mitch Ames (talk) 12:02, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Period" instead of "Full Stop"[edit]

Why is "period" being used to describe the full stop for non-American countries? Only Americans have named a punctuation symbol after a female "time of the month" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.162.154 (talk) 14:38, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary the word "period" has meant "full stop" since the 16th century - long before it was used to refer to menstruation (19th century). Mitch Ames (talk) 12:29, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clarifying "Time" Under "Most common usage"[edit]

Resolved

The article says: People are used to converting between the two notations without requiring mental arithmetic,[*] and most perceive "three o'clock" and "15:00" simply as synonyms.

My added asterisk marks the location of the following "clarification needed" added January 2011: WITHOUT mental arithmetic? Does this mean that they're used to converting with a calculator, or pen and paper?

I don't see the need for the clarification since the article writer goes on to explain why the arithmetic is no longer needed – most [people] perceive "three o'clock" and "15:00" simply as synonyms – but I don't know the policy on resolving requests for clarification. --Kitsunegami (talk) 03:34, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. I've fixed it. (The preferred policy for such requests is WP:SOFIXIT, if you can. :-) )Mitch Ames (talk) 12:38, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dutch mentioned next to Czech and Hungarian under Time[edit]

As native Dutch speaking (Netherlands) I notice that the description makes 14.15 to be pronounced as "kwart over drie" (quarter past three), whereas it is pronounced as "kwart over twee" (quarter past two). Actually the use is similar to the most common German use, like: 

"viertel nach sieben" = "kwart over zeven" (quarter past seven)
"halb acht" = "half acht" (half seven)
"viertel vor acht" = "kwart voor acht" (quarter to eight).

I didn't want to change it directly, since I don't know about Czech and Hungarian? I'm pretty sure (from tv) the Flemish Belgians have the same use, and I guestimate that through the virtue of the "Taalunie" other Dutch speaking nations will use it the same way!?

I think the mention of the Czech language here is misleading, because quarters and halves always refer the upcoming hour. "14:15" is "čtvrt na tři" ("one quarter to three"; "14:45" is then "three quarters to three") I suggest removing the entry "Czech" Adamlibusa (talk) 12:36, 12 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ambiguity. Or not[edit]

"Many countries use the ISO YYYY-MM-DD date format generally, and they have the advantage of being unambiguous."

Quite clearly, *any* format that has 2 digits for the month and 2 digits for the day will definitely struggle with ambiguity at times. If anyone wants to change my mind, please let me know or I'll be back on 2015-05-06 to remove that tenuous claim ;-) Yb2 (talk) 00:04, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There do not seem to exist any countries yet that use YDM format and hyphens. According to Wikipedia the list of countries using YDM format at all is quite short to begin with: Kazakhstan, Latvia, Nepal, and Turkmenistan. So if one were to trust this list, then the claim would be true. Karland90 (talk) 13:15, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

четверть восьмого (quarter of eighth)[edit]

As a native Russian speaker I can observe that I never hear someone saying "четверть восьмого (quarter of eighth)", and if I did I wouldn't know what it means. Maybe we need to check the sources for this one, might be coming from an incorrect textbook or a colloquial use. Sindar (Синдар) (talk) 12:33, 29 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reference #1 is a dead link[edit]

Not sure how to recover it. ADNewsom (talk) 20:39, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Possible citations for "Punctuation and spacing styles differ"?[edit]

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