Board logo

Ordinal or numerical date?
smart51 - 5/11/08 at 08:12 PM

After a bit of a discussion with an international audience, I want to refer back to a more British point of view. Which is correct way to write a date, as an ordinal number ( 5th November) or as a plain numeric number (5 November)?


GeorgeM - 5/11/08 at 08:16 PM

any way as long as it's not the american way


blakep82 - 5/11/08 at 08:17 PM

5/11/08
5th november


matt_claydon - 5/11/08 at 08:22 PM

If it's part of a sentence then "5th November" or ideally "fifth of November". If it's in a box on a form then it doesn't really make any difference, in fact "5 November" probably makes more sense as the 'th' is fairly redundant (or just 5/11/xx). That said personally I would write 5th November as it's what I learnt when I was young!


mookaloid - 5/11/08 at 08:23 PM

I was always taught 5th November

I presume that's the correct way but I've never checked it out myself


blakep82 - 5/11/08 at 08:28 PM

on 2nd/second :p thoughts, meh....

as long as its not 11/5/08, coz thats the 11th of may!


martyn_16v - 5/11/08 at 08:30 PM

1225843201



I'm such a geek


MikeR - 5/11/08 at 08:38 PM

oooh you geek, i haven't checked but i can guess what you've done


smart51 - 5/11/08 at 08:38 PM

quote:
Originally posted by martyn_16v
1225843201



I'm such a geek


Unix time?


martyn_16v - 5/11/08 at 08:41 PM

bingo! I'm not alone


eznfrank - 5/11/08 at 08:59 PM

In legal documents the general practice seems to be 5 November but I think as long as it's consistent throughout the document or whatever it is you're writing it doesn't really matter.

As above though as long as it's not 11/5/08.


scudderfish - 5/11/08 at 08:59 PM

ISO 8601, it's the only way to be sure


meany - 5/11/08 at 09:00 PM

quote:
Originally posted by martyn_16v
bingo! I'm not alone


you should be...lol

only joking

[Edited on 5/11/08 by meany]


smart51 - 5/11/08 at 10:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by scudderfish
ISO 8601, it's the only way to be sure


Except that it is a numerical only date, in Hungarian format i.e. Year Month Day, e.g. 2008-11-05. It doesn't mention ordinal dates with months spelled as words at all. Otherwise it is quite useful.


Jon Ison - 5/11/08 at 10:49 PM

mmmmmmmmmm

We write 05/11/2008, our American friends write 11/05/2008 but................

I visit the states a fair few times a year, often to commission equipment in the pharmacutical industry, all the verification documents require the date written as we do to avoid confusion, as said above the second version can easily be miss interpreted to read 5th May 2008.


Michael - 6/11/08 at 10:05 PM

When i learnt to type i was always told to write it as 5 November.