Writing dates in French

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Permalink Reply by Marc Vonhalmen on November 10, 2009 at 5:54pm

Le 31 mars 1887.

(Months in French don't have capital letters)

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Permalink Reply by Frank on November 10, 2009 at 6:46pm

And dates, when they aren't part of a sentence, should never be followed by a full stop.

Le 31 mars 1887

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on November 10, 2009 at 7:22pm

Today we write, specially in AmE, 31/03/87

Monday 31st March 1887 AD ( Gregorian) [ There is nothing wrong with this format.]

Today is ' 10/11/09' OR 'Tuesday 10th of November 2009 AD (Gregorian)'

[ I assume that 31st of March 1887 was a Monday. I have no way of find out the exact details.]

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Permalink Reply by Frank on November 10, 2009 at 9:30pm

Aujourd'hui nous sommes le 10.11.2009 ou 10/11/2009

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on November 11, 2009 at 11:41am

Frank
Aujourd'hui nous sommes le 10.11.2009 ou 10/11/2009
Do you write both of the above forms in French?
For me the fullstop looks odd.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on November 11, 2009 at 11:57am

From http://j.poitou.free.fr/pro/html/typ/date.html :

Les trois chiffres sont le plus souvent séparés par des barres obliques (8/11/2006). Mais d'autres conventions existent.
L'Imprimerie nationale prescrit l'usage du trait d'union (8-11-2006).
Le point est aussi utilisé (8.11.2006) : c'est la convention adoptée par l'Office des publications des Communautés européennes pour le français, l'anglais et l'allemand (au moins).

And according to Wikipedia, at least Swiss French uses 10.11.2009.

In France, both 10.11.2009 and 10/11/2009 are very common. The notation with dashes is very rare.

I tend to always opt for dots (10.11.2009), because it eliminates possible confusions between / and the digit 1 while handwriting.

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