Questions tagged [dates]
Questions relating to the English Language usage when referring to dates
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How should partial dates hyphened? [closed]
I want to write an abbreviated period of time that goes from 2017 to 2019. I have thought of writing it either as
2017-19
or
2017 - 19
The difference is in the spacing. Which option is best?
Also, ...
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1
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"within five business days of month end" [duplicate]
Does "within five business days of month end" mean something that is done within 5 business days after the month has ended, or does it mean the last 5 business days of the month?
EDIT: In ...
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1
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What's the difference in meaning between 1888/90 and 1888-90?
When an art museum's wall text says "1888/90" does it mean that it took 2 years for the artist to make the work, or does it mean that the work was made at some point during that two-year ...
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National tragedy date shorthand (a la 9/11)
Has anyone coined a term for the post-2001 trend of shortening infamous events to the event's dates? For example, here in the U.S. we have 9/11 and more recently, January 6th. In the UK they have 7/7, ...
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2
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Does "by year X" include year X?
A politician promises to, say, plant 1,000 trees "by 2022". Will one be able to tell if the promise was fulfilled on January 1, 2022 or on January 1, 2023?
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What is the meaning of "but not later than three years"? [duplicate]
What is the meaning of "but not later than three years"?
I'm thinking that "not later than three years" means not more than 3 years, is that correct?
Full sentence:
The Awardee ...
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The use of "Between" in dates. Which days are included? [duplicate]
When writing on a certificate "between the 28th March and the 9th April" does it mean the same as "from the 28th March to the 9th April" ?
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How to read a three-digit year number meaning a decade?
I came across this phrase,
Plato’s Academy, founded in the 380s, was the ultimate ancestor of the modern university (hence the English term academic).
(Britannica)
Could you tell me how to read &...
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Preposition and article prior to dates - UK vs US differences
In the lead of the Wikipedia article on the JWST, I notice the following fragment:
It was launched 25 December 2021…
As a Brit, I recognize that as an American form. In the UK, we'd tend to use, &...
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Cardinal numbers in dates when speaking
I understand that in speaking (if we are talking strictly about formal rules) it is more common to use ordinal numbers and not cardinal numbers. However, it has come to my attention that people these ...
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Days from date count [duplicate]
If someone says,
You have four days from February 4th, 2022 to complete this job
what is the due date to complete the job? is it 7th February or 8th February?
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Over the next 2 weeks [closed]
I need to clarify the time mentioned in this sentence:
Can you please provide me a few dates and times that will suit you over the next 2-3 weeks?
So the dates mentioned should be any day from now ...
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When talking about a historical civilization/event that continues today, how do you write the "end" dates? [duplicate]
Let's say I'm talking about the duration of Hinduism - I've taken the "beginning" date as the 19th century BC, so I've currently written:
(19th century BC - )
I don't know if there is a ...
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Using dates, is "between" inclusive of the start and end dates, or is "from" more appropriate? [duplicate]
Specific case is a period of work that began one date and ended on another date, but only periodically between those dates.
For example:
Services were performed periodically between July 1 and July ...
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Is it common to omit the preposition "of" when referring to dates in British English [duplicate]
In American English, we usually refer to dates using the month-day format. So the date today is spoken as "August eleven" without requiring the preposition "of". However, as far as ...
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When was the Year 0? [closed]
How does one know how many years before year 0000(current years) say "300 BC" was?
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Minimizing the Number of Syllables when Pronouncing Years
Question
Do native English speakers minimize the number of syllables when they pronounce years?
Furthermore, is there linguistics/psychology literature on this phenomenon?
Observations
Here is a ...
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Date: Month and Day To Use TH or Not [closed]
March 15 had never been that cold. It amazed me. Was global warming fake?
March 15th had never been that cold. It amazed me. Was global warming fake?
Which one is correct when writing a short story.
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Term for a specific Month and Year in time
Similar to this question, is there a term to describe a month and year in time, without the day of the month?
eg. a term for the month of May, 2018 as opposed to 23rd May, 2018.
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Formatting birth and death place and date [closed]
I would like to use the proper form for indicating the birth date and place and death date and place for the author of a book review. For example, would this be considered correct:
Erich Neumann (b. ...
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Is is "the 80s AD" or "the AD 80s"?
I edit papers on ancient history, and one issue that keeps coming up is whether to refer to "the AD 80s" (or 50s or 90s etc, referring to a decade in the first century AD) or "the 80s ...
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What time period does "1600s" refer to? [duplicate]
I've used the form "XX00s" to mean a century, as in How poverty affected Britain in the late 1800s or In the 1600s the tensions between the crown and parliament came to a head
And I use &...
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What does admission mean? [closed]
I’m confused. If it is said that “admission starts on [insert date here]”, does this mean I shall wait and apply on the given date of admission or am I supposed to apply as soon as possible and wait ...
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Options for reporting date ranges in a compact way
I am exceeding the word limit in an abstract. What are my options for limiting words in the following sentence?
The study included patients with X diagnosis between 1 January 2009
and 30 September ...
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Dates preposition confusion
I'm a bit confused about the dates preposition.
I know a date can be said in two ways, for example "the second of March" and "March 2(nd)".
But now I seemed to a bit more complex ...
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Lecturer/Tutor at Online University, which word is more appropriate? [closed]
In the following paragraph:
I am Dr. John SMITH, Lecturer at [the name of a virtual university
(abbr.)] since 2009, and Research Director at [the name of another
university (abbr.)] in the years 2012-...
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7
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Is there a symbol used with AD and BC to mean "possible date"?
When historians are writing, they use BC and AD with the date, e.g.:
Robinson discovered the island in 202 BC.
If historians are uncertain about the date, is there a simple and short notation they can ...
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How to write a period of time in formal writing?
I'm working on my thesis and i want to ask whether these formats of dates are correct:
1_ IT lasts from the 8th to the 15th of December, 2019.
2_ From January 26th to Fabruary 2nd, 2020
I also want ...
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3
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Adjective or noun for "uses rules that are commonly accepted even if not consistent"
I'm working on defining technical terms to explain three ways to calculate the length of time between two points in time despite the oddities of Daylight Saving Time (DST):
Always use real-world ...
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1
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1
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489
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a comma between day of week and day of month
Should I use a comma writing a date in the format of day of week and day of month only? The month is known from the context, so the date is, for example, "Thursday, 7"
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Can you use "of" before a date?
I just wondered if you could use "of" instead of "on" before a date in some instances. (Sorry if the question has already been asked, I couldn't find an answer).
For example:
I won't attend the ...
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Use of "dd" instead of "of" or "dated" in constructions of the type "Document Version 4.0 dd 21-April-2020"
I'm a translator and at one translation bureau where I work one of the editors changes the preposition "of" or the word "dated" in time-related constructions to "dd", in this way:
"Document Version ...
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When wording a date where the month and year are seperate from the day, should the month have a comma? (See example.) [duplicate]
Notice the following text:
“How old are you, anyway?” she asked.
“Thirteen as of the twenty‐sixth of July 2004,” he stated proudly.
Should "July" have a comma here? Thanks!
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(How) should redacted years be read aloud?
Related to but different from this question about the purpose of such redactions.
How should a passage such as this from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein be read aloud?
St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17--
...
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What are phrases for the a date meaning "never"? [duplicate]
What are current expressions/phrases for a date or point in time in the future that does not exist, meaning "never"? In German, we have "St. Nimmerleinstag" (meaning "the day of saint never"), what ...
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What's it called when a date has the same 'day-number' as 'month-number'?
For example, my birthday is 9/9. My brothers' birthday is 12/12. Tomorrow will be 3/3. Is there a word that describes when it is the same date as the number we use to represent the month?
Please note ...
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Is there a word to encompass the concept of daylight saving time and standard time?
If I need to talk about the concept of the switching between daylight saving time vs non-daylight saving time, is there a term specific to that?
I can say something like "Tomorrow, we'll change ...
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What is the history behind how date is read?
I was trying to find out if there were reading guidelines for dates, e.g., for broadcasting or competitive recitation. There seem to be a few different accepted ways of reading out dates, e.g., 1, or ...
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What is a good alternative for "Date" when talking about range of years?
I need to design a table where one of the columns is the range of years. The range of years denote when someone was working in a specific city. For example,
Date Location
--------- --------
...
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Term for public holiday that isn't the same date every year?
I just need the term for a public holiday or event that changes it's date every year. So for example Christmas is always on December 25 but Labour Day will change so does Easter every year.
TIA
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Date and time on one line
How does one display a date and a time on one line?
Example:
Sep 25, 2019
20:59
How would this be displayed on one line? Adding another , after 2019 does not look/feel right to me. Is there a rule?
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Alternatives to using "from - to" with dates
Is there a correct and formally accepted shorter alternative to "from ... to ..." when referring to a specific period of time?
e.g. They have their annual forum meeting in Las Vegas from 10 to 12 ...
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"Due date of" or "Due date for"?
"November 10th is the due date for assignment 1"
"November 10th is the due date of assignment 1"
Are both correct? If so, which one is best?
I don't think it makes any difference but I will be using ...
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26
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2
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Why is "-ber" the suffix of the last four months of the year?
September
October
November
December
Presumably something Latin, but my (admittedly brief) search sees only mention of the number-based root words.
More specifically, what does "-ber" mean?
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"Valid through 2021" means until when?
If some validity period, say a promotion, specifies "valid through 2021", does that mean until Dec 31, 2021, or Jan 1, 2021?
This is in the USA, if this differs around the world.
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When did "floored" become used to mean "surprised?"
My go-to resource, Etymology online, has plenty of information about "floor" as a noun, but not as a verb to mean "surprise" or even "knock over." I just want to know if it would be anachronistic to ...
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Is there an adverb for "on working days only"
I am writing (yet another) calendar software which should also support recurrent entries/events, i.e. entries that repeat in certain intervals.
So far I have:
"daily" - happens every day
"weekly" - ...
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3
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Correct preposition for dates written YYYY-MM-DD
What is the correct preposition when writing dates in the numerical format YYYY-MM-DD? I would argue that there are two possibilities, "on" or no preposition at all, but then again I'm not a native ...
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19 April 12pm - What time is it? Is 12:00pm this day the same as 00:00am tomorrow? [duplicate]
English is not my native language and I am confused when writing about midnight of some day. I am mostly using 24h-format on every day basic, so I want to make sure how to use 12h-format properly.
...
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How to write when you're comparing dates [closed]
I want to express in a technical specification document the outcome when comparing two dates. In programming language I can simply say if DateA is smaller than DateB but when translating this to ...
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