Writing Calendar Dates and Times

In an effort to standardize the format for writing calendar dates and to avoid the confusion which now exists between day, month and year, the Bureau of Standards has advocated the use of the Format set out by the International Standard ISO 8601 which deals with numeric representations of date and time.

Writing Dates

According to the above format, two methods can be used for writing dates. They are the (1) numeric format and (2) non- numeric format.

(1)        All-numeric format

In this format, only numbers are used, e.g., 2006-05-26.  Note that four digits are used for the year, two digits for the month and two digits for the day.  In cases where the month or day is lower than 10, a zero is placed in front of the single digit.

(2)        Non-numeric format

This format is represented by a combination of words and numbers, e.g., Friday, May 26, 2006.

Using the International Twenty- Four hour clock

Regarding the writing of times, the international twenty-four hour clock system should be used.  Instead of using am and pm, the word “hour” is used.  A day begins at zero hour and ends at twenty four hours.

For example, “Use eight hours” instead of “eight 0’clock” or “8 am”, written as “08:00h”.  Please note that there are two places for the hour and two places for the minutes, with a colon as the separator and lower case “h” for hour.  So “eight hours” is written as “08:00h”.  Similarly, “eleven 0’clock” or “11 am” is written as “11:00h”, and “5:30 pm” is written as “17:30h” (seventeenth hours thirty).