Markus Kuhn wrote:
> It is actually surprising
> that the US don't use Romal numerals that much any more, a frightening
> spread of modern conventions I'd say.
Well, Europeans dumped Roman numerals (except for artistic purposes)
before coming to America, so that's not too surprising.
> Not only Europe got rid of all
> this medieval stuff over the last century,
Europe had no choice if it was to interoperate. The U.S. could
interoperate even using our crazy conventions already. The result
is that only the metric system has specific legal authority in
this country: the customary system is just that -- customary.
> In the US on the other hand, for not
> entirely clear reasons, the oldest and most bizarre conventions around
> seem to be preferred
People are conservative about such things in fact. It took draconian
legislation to get the metric system adopted in ordinary life
even in France! (Which does not mean that it wasn't *worth* doing.)
> So why not call them POSIX.UTF-8 locales? This would make me a bit more
> comfortable, because I do associate en_US locales with bizarre
> conventions like using 12a as the first hour of the day, etc., and I'd
> like to stay away from those.
And with the idea that ä, é, etc. are not letters.
-- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! / Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge / Politzer
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