Re:Palindrome Day 20200202
by thaumasiotes on Sunday February 02, 2020 @04:40AM
(#22216099)
I would agree that there's influence in both directions between the written pattern and the usual manner of speech. All I'm saying here is that there's nothing surprising about the written pattern matching the usual manner of speech. That is the primary purpose of writing; it's weirder for the writing not to match the speech. (Although certainly not unheard of; it is the norm in e.g. Chinese.)
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Unfortunately, you're using an idiosyncratic American "usual manner of speech" to justify an idiosyncratic American format.
Re:Palindrome Day 20200202
by thaumasiotes on Sunday February 02, 2020 @05:12AM
(#22216201)
And the problem with that is... what? Are you saying we should all speak Chinese because spoken Chinese dates go in correct sorting order?
Re:Palindrome Day 20200202
by umanwizard on Sunday February 02, 2020 @09:35AM
(#22217073)
Idiosyncratic? Of course. People in different countries speak differently. Every natural language is totally arbitrary and “idiosyncratic”. What is your point?
The assertion that most people and most countries in spoken language say “day [of] month”, which I find anecdotally accurate, although that’s mainly in European countries and languages
This matches why almost every country in the world uses “d/m/y” in normal usage.
Re:Palindrome Day 20200202
by umanwizard on Sunday February 02, 2020 @10:52AM
(#22217442)
If you were aware of the mind-boggling diversity of human language you would not make claims like “typical languages do X so one that doesn’t is idiosyncratic” (unless backed by serious research spanning the thousands of known languages). You would also not think experience with a few languages from the Indo-European family is generalizable.
Standard Chinese for example uses Y/M/D and I’m sure you can find many examples of other formats.
I think the only major language using the M, D, Y spoken order are American-influenced English and Ewe (Ghana etc).
Several countries write a short data as M/D/Y, but these mostly have a significant American influence.
Re:Palindrome Day 20200202
by thaumasiotes on Monday February 03, 2020 @04:23AM
(#22222663)
The claim was "almost every country in the world uses d/m/y in normal usage", which doesn't pass the laugh test.
It wasn't "almost every country in the world doesn't use m/d/y", even if you would have liked it to be.