Re: [LEAPSECS] GMT -> UTC in Australia and elsewhere

From: Markus Kuhn <Markus.Kuhn_at_cl.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:11:37 +0000

Steve Allen wrote on 2005-02-23 02:27 UTC:
> http://abc.net.au/science/news/space/SpaceRepublish_1307267.htm
> The last line in the article implies other jurisdictions are doing the same.

Or have done the same long ago ...

The EU summer time directive remains agnostic on the issue and
(deliberately or accidentally?) blurrs the distinction between GMT and
UTC by using different terminology in the twelfe different language
versions:

http://europa.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Seek-Deliver&COLLECTION=oj&SERVICE=eurlex&LANGUAGE=en&DOCID=2001l031p0021

-> English: "Greenwich Mean Time"

http://europa.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Seek-Deliver&COLLECTION=oj&SERVICE=eurlex&LANGUAGE=de&DOCID=2001l031p0021

-> German: "Weltzeit"

http://europa.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Seek-Deliver&COLLECTION=oj&SERVICE=eurlex&LANGUAGE=fr&DOCID=2001l031p0021

-> French: "temps universel"

http://europa.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Seek-Deliver&COLLECTION=oj&SERVICE=eurlex&LANGUAGE=nl&DOCID=2001l031p0021

-> Dutch: "wereldtijd"

http://europa.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Seek-Deliver&COLLECTION=oj&SERVICE=eurlex&LANGUAGE=da&DOCID=2001l031p0021

-> Danish: "werdenstid (UTC)"

http://europa.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Seek-Deliver&COLLECTION=oj&SERVICE=eurlex&LANGUAGE=it&DOCID=2001l031p0021

-> Italian: "ora universale"

[...]

It seems that apart from the English versions, they all use an
equivalent of either the French "temps universel" (universal time) or
the German "Weltzeit" (world time). Oddly, of the ones I checked, only
the Danish version explicitely mentiones UTC.

I wonder whether these terms were merely looked up in dictionaries or
actually copied from the relevant national legislation.

[Also fun is to look up GMT and UTC in the EU terminology database on
http://europa.eu.int/eurodicautom/.]

Markus
Received on Wed Feb 23 2005 - 04:11:57 PST