[Bug localedata/11630] New: Odd time separator in Swedish time format for sv_SE

[Bug localedata/11630] New: Odd time separator in Swedish time format for sv_SE

[m4rh at stjernholm dot org]

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Libc is currently using "." as separator in time stamps in the sv_SE locale. I
think it should be ":" instead, i.e. "HH:MM:SS" instead of "HH.MM.SS".

Albeit both notations occur in Swedish, the one with period is much more
uncommon and looks slightly odd to a native Swede like me, especially when used
with second precision.

To justify that ":" is a more common separator, I did a brief survey of the 20
most popular web sites accessed from Sweden (according to
http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/SE):

google.se:
Example: "den 23 maj 2010 16:28:23 GMT" - click "Cachad" (cached) on any hit.

facebook.com:
Not checked, as I lack an account and cannot find any time stamp on the front page.

google.com:
Not in Swedish.

youtube.com:
Cannot find any time stamps (only durations).

aftonbladet.se:
Example: "21:00 Aktuellt" - from the TV listings at the bottom on the front page.

live.com:
Not checked since an account needed, and no there is no time stamp on the front
page.

wikipedia.org:
Example: "september 2006 kl. 08.19 (CEST)" - from some article on
sv.wikipedia.org, click "diskussion" (discussion) and see time stamps after
comments. It is not unlikely that these time stamps are generated by the libc
I'm filing this bug against, though.

blocket.se:
Example: "Idag 20:38" - click on any area on the Swedish map; there are time
stamps in front of the ads that appear.

blogger.com:
Example: "2008-12-11 21:14" - from a random blog
http://www.blogger.com/feeds/2129541161917078962/posts/default.

yahoo.com:
Could not find any time stamps on se.yahoo.com.

msn.com:
Example: "2010-05-24 21:09" - go to se.msn.com and choose some news article.

foreningssparbanken.se:
Example: "Valutakurserna uppdateras 11.30 varje dag." -
http://www.swedbank.se/privat/rantor-priser-och-kurser/index.htm.

hitta.se:
Example: "Start: 2010-04-19 21:00" - choose "Trafik" (traffic) and zoom in on
one of the traffic events.

expressen.se:
Example: "21:00 CSI" - scroll down to the TV listings at the bottom of the page.

eniro.se:
Example: "23:25" - choose "Köp & Sälj" (buy & sell), see the "Senast inlagda
annonser" (most recent ads) list.

twitter.com:
Not available in Swedish.

dn.se:
Example: "20:59" - see the "Senaste nytt" (latest news) list to the right.

blogg.se:
Example: "2010-05-24 | 19:55:44" - choose the first blog that comes up.

wordpress.com:
Example: "24 maj 2010 kl 20:17" - choose some blog from sv.wordpress.com.

thepiratebay.org:
Example: "Senast uppdaterad 08:24:04." - on the front page after selecting
"Svenska" as language preference.

To summarize, 12 of these popular sites use HH:MM or HH:MM:SS, while 2 use HH.MM.

To this I can add that a certain other market leading commercial OS uses
HH:MM:SS in its Swedish locale (even though the separator is configurable there,
only ":" is among the alternatives in the version I checked).

-- 
           Summary: Odd time separator in Swedish time format for sv_SE
           Product: glibc
           Version: 2.11
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: localedata
        AssignedTo: libc-locales at sources dot redhat dot com
        ReportedBy: m4rh at stjernholm dot org
                CC: glibc-bugs at sources dot redhat dot com


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11630

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Re: [Bug localedata/11630] New: Odd time separator in Swedish time format for sv_SE

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 05/24/2010 12:42 PM, m4rh at stjernholm dot org wrote:
> Libc is currently using "." as separator in time stamps in the sv_SE locale. I
> think it should be ":" instead, i.e. "HH:MM:SS" instead of "HH.MM.SS".
> 
> Albeit both notations occur in Swedish, the one with period is much more
> uncommon and looks slightly odd to a native Swede like me, especially when used
> with second precision.

Last I looked, period was the recommended style in all Swedish styleguides.

The closest thing to official is probably "Svenska skrivregler" by the
Svenska Språkrådet, which isn't available online, but there is a style
guide ("Myndigheternas skrivregler") for use by government institutions at:

http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/253/a/33329

Section 9.2 clearly states that the proper separator is ".".

":" is presumably an English influence via ISO 8601 and digital clocks.

	-hpa

[Bug localedata/11630] Odd time separator in Swedish time format for sv_SE

[pasky at suse dot cz]

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------- Additional Comments From hpa at zytor dot com  2010-05-25 00:03 -------
Subject: Re:  New: Odd time separator in Swedish time
 format for sv_SE

On 05/24/2010 12:42 PM, m4rh at stjernholm dot org wrote:
> Libc is currently using "." as separator in time stamps in the sv_SE locale. I
> think it should be ":" instead, i.e. "HH:MM:SS" instead of "HH.MM.SS".
> 
> Albeit both notations occur in Swedish, the one with period is much more
> uncommon and looks slightly odd to a native Swede like me, especially when used
> with second precision.

Last I looked, period was the recommended style in all Swedish styleguides.

The closest thing to official is probably "Svenska skrivregler" by the
Svenska Språkrådet, which isn't available online, but there is a style
guide ("Myndigheternas skrivregler") for use by government institutions at:

http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/253/a/33329

Section 9.2 clearly states that the proper separator is ".".

":" is presumably an English influence via ISO 8601 and digital clocks.

	-hpa

------- Additional Comments From pasky at suse dot cz  2010-05-25 10:39 -------
I'm closing this bug now as it appears the change is contentious:

Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 17:03:29 -0700
From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Subject: Re: [Bug localedata/11630] New: Odd time separator in Swedish time
format for sv_SE

Last I looked, period was the recommended style in all Swedish styleguides.

The closest thing to official is probably "Svenska skrivregler" by the
Svenska Spr&#229;kr&#229;det, which isn't available online, but there is a style
guide ("Myndigheternas skrivregler") for use by government institutions at:

http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/253/a/33329

Section 9.2 clearly states that the proper separator is ".".

":" is presumably an English influence via ISO 8601 and digital clocks.

        -hpa


-- 
           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |INVALID


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11630

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[Bug localedata/11630] Odd time separator in Swedish time format for sv_SE

[m4rh at stjernholm dot org]

------- Additional Comments From m4rh at stjernholm dot org  2010-05-25 14:10 -------
Figures there would be some "official" writing guidelines that odd format was
taken from.

English influence or not, ":" is defacto much more common in modern everyday
Swedish usage, which a survey of popular Swedish content such as the one I did
readily shows. The purpose of the locale is presumably to use formatting most
Swedes feel comfortable with, and in that perspective common/defacto/established
usage arguably carry more weight than some guideline document, in case of conflict.

A survey of popular usage can of course be done with much more care to avoid bad
measurements such as web sites with poor/sloppy language treatment, but I can
point out that three of them (aftonbladet.se, expressen.se, and dn.se)
correspond to big national news papers, which as such do pay attention to this
sort of thing.

-- 
           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|RESOLVED                    |REOPENED
         Resolution|INVALID                     |


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11630

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[Bug localedata/11630] Odd time separator in Swedish time format for sv_SE

[pasky at suse dot cz]

------- Additional Comments From pasky at suse dot cz  2010-05-25 16:43 -------
In the past, we had trouble with locale changes that were controversial, thus in
case there are dissenting voices and the issue is ambiguous (e.g. common usage
vs. standardization), we prefer to seek consensus. This is not to say this bug
report should turn into a discussion forum, but you should first start a
discussion among other Swedish GNU users in the appropriate venue and gathering
feedback before pushing this further.

For starters, it would be good to have a feedback from the original locale
author (if you can contact them) and the GNU sv translation team
(http://translationproject.org/team/sv.html).

-- 
           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|REOPENED                    |WAITING


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11630

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