Translating dates

[Emily Saunders]

A big thank you to all who wrote in with suggestions.  I've opted to go  
with the majority vote of 2 Mar since it will be clear to both sides,  
looks clean, and will fit reasonably well (if not exactly ideally) into  
the tables.

Regards,

Emily

On Mar 29, 2007, at 8:43 AM, Emily Saunders wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have a question for more experienced translators.  I've been handed  
> a couple of papers to translate from Russian to English about whales.   
> They are, I believe, to be delivered at an upcoming conference or  
> consortium or some such in Alaska.  They contain tables with dates of  
> whale sightings and periods of observations.  These dates are  
> naturally in the Russian format such as:  2.05 and  5.06-7.11, which  
> Americans could (would?) erroneously read as February 5 and June 5 -  
> July 11 if left in their current format.
>
> A suggestion I've received is to switch the numbers, but put an  
> American slash "/" between them instead of the period to make it clear  
> that this is American format.  My gut, however, says to spell them out  
> (May 2 and June 5 - Nov 7) since simply switching the order would be  
> potentially confusing for Russians.  This will take up more column  
> width in the tables, which is a little awkward, but essentially  
> doable.  Or should I just leave them be because the scientific  
> community out there follows the European norm anyway (sort of like  
> kilos and celsius)?  If there is any set norm as to how this is dealt  
> with, I'd be very grateful to know.
>
> Regards,
>
> Emily Saunders
>
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