20 Nov
2002
20 Nov
'02
8:01 p.m.
For the last few years I have been writing dates in what one might term "Hungarian Humanist" style: 2002 November 20. When there is not enough space in the blank, I abbreviate the month name. The reason for using the name of the month instead of its number, is to disambiguate the format. I don't have to explain my format to anyone: it can be parsed in only one way. For a time I toyed with using the Julian Day Number from astronomy (in which 2000 January 1 is day number 2451545, and days are simply numbered sequentially) but decided that would be worse than "11 Brumaire". -A