9/11

Posted by Barney on July 26, 2003

In Reply to: 9/11 posted by Henry on July 26, 2003

: : Is there a computer reason for not dating posts in dd/mm/yy format?

: To the British, 9/11 means the ninth of November. Systems often allow you to specify either use.

The British are, by nature, a clever lot and would perfectly understand that 9/11 is, in decimal form, 0.8181818181 recurring. They would never mistakenly interpret the denominator of a vulgar fraction as a month in the Gregorian calendar. Should they wish to indicate the day of a month they would, for example, say '9th September'. This greatly assists in the clarity of communication and avoids unnecessary confusion.