At 9:35 -0600 3/20/2003, John Jetmore wrote:
>I've never particularly understood why we write the date that way, either,
>though I admit to dating my checks that way. Everything computer related,
>though, is YYYYMMDD. Much nicer to parse...
I, too, don't know why we write dates that way. It's neither smallest unit
to largest, nor largest to smallest, nor most interesting first, nor most
interesting last*. I also don't understand why we insist that there are
two 11:00 times per day so we have to add disambiguators and 12 comes
before 1 (not on any of my devices on which I can set it to 24 hour form);
or why we persist in measuring things based on a particular deceased King's
thumb (if that really is where the inch came from).
--John
* The British/American sailing tradition has that right in the case of the
calls from the leadsman:
"a quarter less 2" has the most important word last, where the quarterdeck
is most likely to wake up and hear it, and the next most important thing
next to last ("less" can only mean "a quarter less"). Anyhow, it's 1 3/4
fathoms (10.5 feet)...or, on the 10 1/2 foot draft schooner I sailed on
quite a bit "Captain, you're darn close to the bottom!"
--
John Baxter jwblist@??? Port Ludlow, WA, USA
