Ron Hawkins wrote: Surely you meant to say "almost all of the rest of the world..."
I meant something a little more restrictive, to wit the regions that used to be [and in some measure still are] colo[u]red pink on world maps. None of my Pakistani friends of course thinks of him/herself as a living in the British Empire. 1957 was a long time ago. Still, they all use the British spelling 'colour' instead of the American spelling 'color'. Language dialects are very conservative. There is no right or wrong twixt them. There is only what is. A few minutes ago I sent an email in German to a German-speaking Swiss colleague, and I dated it "17.September 2013". In writing to her in German it would not occur to me to use 17.09 2013 or the like, although she would of course understand what I meant if I did so These things said, it must be conceded that the American construct <month><day of month><year> is a municipal one, having only local validity, in the sense in which international lawyers use that term. It does not sort, and it is all but certain to make trouble sooner rather than later if you use it to date cheques|checks drawn on British-Commonwealth banks. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
