this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
660 points (94.7% liked)

Science Memes

11189 readers
2159 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Alabaster_Mango@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

But "Coffee fourth"/"fourth coffee" and "23rd July"/"July 23rd" are different things. I don't think it's a good comparison.

With the coffees you are counting how many you've had. The thing being counted is explicitly stated in the phrase.

With dates, you are not counting the number of July's. This isn't my 23rd July, but the 23rd day of this July. The thing being counted is only implied by colloquial understanding.

So yes, "coffee fourth" doesn't work, but that doesn't have much bearing on how to say a date in my opinion

[–] Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You're right, but the same must be said for July 23rd. Both are abbreviating "day in the month of july" to a simple mention of the month.

At the end of the day both work, both are equally efficient, and simply come down to habit.

[–] Alabaster_Mango@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

Yeah, that's my thinking too. English, and language in general, is very fluid. Different regions will have different colloquialisms, and even different dialects of the same language. So long as we all understand what is meant does it really matter all that much how it was said?