Message-Id: <9202112057.AA11697@relay2.UU.NET>
Date:         Wed, 12 Feb 1992 08:54:50 GMT+1200
Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!chandley
Sender: Lojban list <cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!LOJBAN>
From: Chris Handley <cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!CHandley>
Subject:      RE: Digit strings
To: John Cowan <cowan@snark.thyrsus.com>
Status: RO

> I think this is worth considering, but it
>opens up a number of related areas: specifically, the order of
>dates and times. When I read the chapter of the textbook on dates,
>my immediate response was "What, you're constraining me to quoting
>them in a particular order?" I note, for example, that both ISO
>dates and everyday Japanese usage go consistently from larger to
>smaller. For a direct supporting argument for And, I believe that
>in Arabic, numbers are consistently read from smaller to larger (as
>numbers between 20 and 99 in German).

Certainly the current confusion between the British (DMY), USAn
(MDY) and ISO (YMD) _does_ need to be resolved and soon. In twelve
years time we are going to see dates like 2/3/4 and I defy you to
determine to determine what day is meant. Maybe Lojban could lead
the way, or at least be consistent within its community.

On the subject of numbers per se (as opposed to namebers such as
dates, model numbers, chip numbers, etc), bear in mind that most
arithmetic operations work from least significant to most
significant, so maybe there is a case for writing and saying them
that way. Going to take quite a mental shift however - except for
the Arabs.

Chris Handley                                     chandley@otago.ac.nz
Dept of Computer Science                       Ph     (+64) 3-479-8499
University of Otago                           Fax     (+64) 3-479-8577
Dunedin, NZ