Sep 11
Why is it 9-11 and not 11-9?
Cats: odd things|It’s always struck me as curious that this day is codified as 9-11.
It’s true that we say September (9) 11th(11), but whenever you distill a date down to numbers on a form, the little boxes always ask for day-month-year in that order. Not month-day-year. Think of your birthday.
I always assumed the logic to be that it starts with the smallest increment – day – and then follows with the next smallest – month – and finishes with year, the largest.
That would mean 9-11 is the 9th of November.
I can see that 9-11 rolls off the tongue. It sounds like 911 the number you call in an emergency.
But what is the technical reason? Is it always written as month-day-year in the US? Or was this an exception to the rule of numeric dating systems?
September 11th, 2007 at 7:32 am
I think you’re right that it’s a US thing. I think England especially does the day/month thing, and probably the rest of Europe (maybe the rest of the world?).
I always get in a muddle when I have to fill out a form and they don’t tell me what order to put it in.
I like to write my birthday as Nov 2 instead of 2 Nov.
And my birthdate is the opposite of Dale’s. (11-2 or 2-11?) And that’s the only way I can remember my birthday.
September 11th, 2007 at 7:47 am
There is no date standard. I always write the date like so:
9 Sept/07 so there is no confusion for reasonable intelligent people.
I got an invoice a while back that was due 04/08/07…I paid it 4 months late, and didn’t offer up an apology.
It was discussed on “Live it Up – What bugs me?” and unfortunately the various institutions change to a single standard. I think the CSA should be all over it.
September 11th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I’m with you Dick. If they don’t create a standard, I say we storm the ramparts of the Canadian Standards Assn. With burning spears.
Espanya, really? The opposite of Dale’s? That’s amazing.
Are you over him yet? Or is he over you?
September 11th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
I’ll never be over Dale. And he’s only ‘over’ me because he lives north of me.
September 11th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Ahhhhhhh…. you two are precious, just precious….
PS does he ever talk about…. me?
September 11th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
I talk about you all the time…he barely talks to me… (Tanya in a corner, crying)
September 11th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Okay, okay, let me ‘splain. When it comes to 9/11, it doesn’t matter if Canadians write dates such as 11 Sept/07 instead of 11/9/07, or 11 Nov instead of Nov 11, or 11-3 instead of 3-11. Since 9/11 was an American disaster, Americans get to call that day whatever we please, and since we express dates such as 9/11, that’s what we’re going with, not the reverse (11/9).
See, we win once again.
The other reason? Just as you said GT: “I can see that 9-11 rolls off the tongue. It sounds like 911 the number you call in an emergency.”
Okay, I’m going quietly now. Don’t beat me! I’m not THAT bad.
September 11th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
That pretty well says it Zed.
September 11th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
[...] a spirited explanation from Zed, I did a quick google and found that the 9-11 notation is correct by every national and [...]
September 12th, 2007 at 11:24 am
And maybe you’d like to do a post about the titles on books and how here they start at the top and we read down (with our heads tilted to the right) and in Eurolandia they read from the bottom up, heads tilted to the left…