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"August 14th" is shorter than saying "the 14th of August", the latter just sounds a bit too formal and unnecessary imo.
Huh? In speech you would say that yeah, but does it matter if it takes 0.5 seconds extra to say it? Written on paper you'd still put '14th August', just as you guys put 'August 14th'.
I don't think it sounds formal at all, it's just natural and more sensible to say the day first before the month..
Huh? In speech you would say that yeah, but does it matter if it takes 0.5 seconds extra to say it? Written on paper you'd still put '14th August', just as you guys put 'August 14th'.
I don't think it sounds formal at all, it's just natural and more sensible to say the day first before the month..
It's extremely frustrating and confusing where I live when it comes to numerical dates.
The most common uses here are DMYYYY (which happens to follow the way you say it in French, and also from smallest to largest) or YYYYMD (from largest to smallest), but some electronic devices are programmed for use in the States and so they spit out MDYYYY.
So two days ago I could have gotten a receipt or a form that said 2015/08/12 as the date, or 12/08/2015, but 08/12/2015 is also in the realm of possibility...
Huh? In speech you would say that yeah, but does it matter if it takes 0.5 seconds extra to say it? Written on paper you'd still put '14th August', just as you guys put 'August 14th'.
I don't think it sounds formal at all, it's just natural and more sensible to say the day first before the month..
Putting the month first comes more naturally in American English. Neither is inherently more logical. But intuitively, putting the month first makes more sense to me. Because you're starting with the month, then specifying the day.
As for measuring air temperature (i.e. the weather), the Celsius scale is not as useful as Fahrenheit. To paraphrase a graphic I've seen floating around
Fahrenheit
0 = really cold 100 = really hot
Celsius
0 = cold 100 = dead
Kelvin
0 = dead 100 = dead
From the point of view of a physicist, there's little advantage to quoting air temperature in Celsius. That it's metric means that people can feel superior for using it, but almost any useful calculation involving temperature involves looking up one or more constants or material properties (kB, cP, etc.), totally negating the usefulness of being in the metric system.
Putting the month first comes more naturally in American English. Neither is inherently more logical. But intuitively, putting the month first makes more sense to me. Because you're starting with the month, then specifying the day.
I know that's what people are used to saying, but putting the month before is actually the least logical of the three. The month is the ''middle" unit in a date. The day and the year are "larger" or "smaller" depending on how you look at it, but the month is always the middle one.
While it seems like everyone has fallen off the topic here, I find Fahrenheit an excellent measure of what it is.
Temperature in relation to weather and the human body.
Long term exposure to <0 Degrees = You'll die.
Long term exposure to >100 Degrees = You'll die.
It's very easy on a scale of 0 to 100 to know what's acceptable, and what isn't.
Centigrade may make sense for science and some cooking, but on the whole doesn't offer a wide range of outdoor or swim temperatures.
I know that's what people are used to saying, but putting the month before is actually the least logical of the three. The month is the ''middle" unit in a date. The day and the year are "larger" or "smaller" depending on how you look at it, but the month is always the middle one.
But it's not less logical, just like how it's equally logical to put an adjective before or after a noun. Case in point, hot sun in English or sol caliente in Spanish. Putting the date first conforms to the grammatical rules of Latin. English has been heavily Latinized in many ways, but it's not a Latinate language. Putting the month first is perfectly grammatical in English, and the date format in American English reflects that.
Huh? In speech you would say that yeah, but does it matter if it takes 0.5 seconds extra to say it? Written on paper you'd still put '14th August', just as you guys put 'August 14th'.
I don't think it sounds formal at all, it's just natural and more sensible to say the day first before the month..
Why? Do you say the minute before the hour when stating the time? Do you say 10:15 to indicate 15 minutes into the 10th hour? Or do you say 15:10, putting the more specific first as you do with dates?
The natural order for categorization in most systems is to move from general to specific. So you start with the month, March. Ok, what day in the month? The 14th. Ok, what time on that day? 10:15am.
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