How does Canada measure up? (buying a house, buying, stores)

[mikeyyc]

Originally Posted by BIMBAM

Are you Francophone? I believe the date order is because of how one says the date in English vs. French. So in French you'd say la 4ieme de Aout 2012 (DD/MM/YYY), whereas in English you'd say August the 4th, 2012 (MM/DD/YY). Am I wrong? I've never seen an Anglophone use DD/MM/YYYY, I don't think it's a metric thing.

The entire world, other than the US uses day month year. How it's written, and how it's said are completely different things.

[Zoisite]

Originally Posted by mikeyyc

The entire world, other than the US uses day month year. How it's written, and how it's said are completely different things.

Not on official forms in Canada. For example if you're filling in an online application form for social assistance or employment insurance or some such thing, or filling out forms for department of motor vehicles and it asks for the date of birth, or date of application or date signed - it wants it filled in as month - day - year.

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[Zoisite]

I have a hard time with metric - perhaps because I'm older (past 60) or maybe I just have a mental block about it. It's easier for me to think or visualize in terms of inches, feet, yards, ounces, quarts, gallons, farenheit. I don't have any trouble converting miles to kilometers and visa versa though.

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[Acajack]

Originally Posted by BIMBAM

Well, it was somewhat before my time, but in practice we tend to use a mix of the two systems in a kind of a weird way. Few Canadians would be confused by inches vs centimetres, we're all familiar with those two units. When it comes to temperature, I'm totally lost when it comes to Fahrenheit, I really only know temperature in degrees Celsius. Same with fluid quantities, I couldn't tell you how much a quart was to save my life. On the other hand, when it comes to measuring my personal height or weight I am much more familiar with imperial measurements then I am with metric ones. So it's a weird mix that's situation dependant in a lot of ways.

As for Francophone Quebeckers, there's some things, like time, that are measured in metric which is different, but for the most part they use the same crazy ad hoc mix of imperial and metric English Canadians do, and my mum says it wasn't easy switching over back in the day, and she was born and raised in rural Quebec (although she is Anglophone).

Very true. A lot of it has to do with technology and standardization. For example, everyone in Quebec gives temperatures in metric, except for swimming pool temperatures because the equipment comes from Florida and California. Lumber for construction is in feet and inches because products are sold both in Canada and the U.S. A two by four is a deux par quatre.

Distances and speeds are always metric in common speech.

A person's height and weight can be either. Imperial is very predominant with older people but younger people are trending towards metric.

A media report for a suspect in a robbery in Quebec will likely give height and weight in metric, but sometimes it will be Imperial.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Zoisite

Not on official forms in Canada. For example if you're filling in an online application form for social assistance or employment insurance or some such thing, or filling out forms for department of motor vehicles and it asks for the date of birth, or date of application or date signed - it wants it filled in as month - day - year.

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There is no hard and fast rule on this. It is all over the map and you get DMY, MDY and also YYYYMMDD as well.

The federal government only uses YYYYMMDD for everything because it is the least confusing.

Some provinces use DMY others use MDY. MDY is American influenced and appears to be more common in Western Canada.

Businesses that are US-oriented or US branches tend to use MDY.

In Quebec DMY or YYYYMMDD are the dominant forms but you also occasionally see MDY from cash registers and other machines which are automatically programmed this way. I don't think anyone in Quebec would write out an MDY date on paper though since it doesn't make sense in French.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by mikeyyc

The entire world, other than the US uses day month year. How it's written, and how it's said are completely different things.

UK and Australia for example use DMY.

[botticelli]

Well, this is just another example where Canada seems to be struggling with whether to go with the tide of the world, or simply do whatever the United States does.

I mean, come on, at least stick to one and be consistent!

Did I mention Canadian spelling is a mixture of UK and US as well? We write "realise" but "aging".

[zortation]

Originally Posted by BIMBAM

Are you Francophone? I believe the date order is because of how one says the date in English vs. French. So in French you'd say la 4ieme de Aout 2012 (DD/MM/YYY), whereas in English you'd say August the 4th, 2012 (MM/DD/YY). Am I wrong? I've never seen an Anglophone use DD/MM/YYYY, I don't think it's a metric thing.

Actually, it was the British custom of verbalizing dates as "4th of August, 2012" who foisted the DD/MM/YYYY upon us, but I don't care if it was the British, French, or the Chinese, it just makes complete sense to do it that way.

I haven't come across any government forms that require it MM/DD/YYYY that I can think of, it's always been DD/MM/YYYY for as long as I can remember. I'm guessing it's different in different parts of the country.

[tarp]

Pretty sure Ontario vehicle registration forms go MM/DD/YYYY.

[tinkerbell030681]

Metric in Canada became mandatory in 1975 the year I left school. I learnt the imperial system and never had to learn the metric system although it was shoved down our throats whether we wanted it or not. We had weather in both for years then the F eventually dropped and just the C was used. I still cannot convert them well. When it came to shopping for material, I sure learned that I couldn't ask for 3 yards of fabric, that I had to ask for 1 meter, which was better because you got 3" more. LOL, LOL. But when talking with my kids who live in Canada, since I live in the US now, I can't convert the weather. I have to look it up. They use both imperial and metric when it comes to measuring or when cooking but otherwise they know mostly the metric system since their schooling was all done in Canada (Quebec).

You manage especially when you find out the only one's who didn't go metric was the US. They were suppose to at the same time as Canada but chickened out at the last moment and decided not to push it. Oh well, c'est la vie! LOL