On Mar 17, 2010, at 2:01 PM, Michael Edward McNeil wrote: > On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 12:29, Bob Hinden <bob.hinden@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Mar 17, 2010, at 9:02 AM, Michael Edward McNeil wrote: > > Since Americans habitually use month-day order anyway, why would YYYY-MM-DD be especially difficult for them? It's Europeans and others who typically use day-month order that would seem likely to incur difficulties -- except that putting the year first is a pretty glaring clue that the order shouldn't be regarded as it usually is for them. > > > > Since this thread is about making things clearer, I would comment on your use of the word "Americans". Americans means everyone in North and South America. I suspect what is meant here, is just the USA. > > > Reminds me of a little kid who runs up and proclaims (this actually happened to me), "I'm not a kid! Kids are baby goats!" Well, kids may be baby goats -- but they're also (sometimes brattish) young humans -- and most speakers of human languages quickly become cognizant of the fact that every spoken language has words with more than one accepted meaning, which are perfectly correct in context, viz. dictionary.com: > > A·mer·i·can [uh-mer-i-kuhn] > > 1. of or pertaining to the United States of America or its inhabitants: an American citizen. > 2. of or pertaining to North or South America; of the Western Hemisphere: the American continents. > 3. of or pertaining to the aboriginal Indians of North and South America, usually excluding the Eskimos.... > > Hm, I wonder which of those meanings could possibly have been intended here? > > Michael McNeil > Canadians like to think of themselves as fairly peaceful people, unless of course, you call them American. Or you are discussing hockey at the Olympics. _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf