I've been trying for years (by example) to popularize using PT, MT, CT, ET. Since it's always after a number ("Are you avail at 4ET?") there has never been one instance of confusion, and I save typing and avoid the small but real possibility of being interpreted too literally (suppose someone asks a computer "What time is 4:00 PM EST in London time" during the summer, and gets a 'technically correct' answer).
This is the kind of imprecision that enrages me, though, because I am a resident of Arizona, and we observe MST all year long. It is currently MST. It is not MDT here. Therefore if we say, like, "it's 4:33pm MT" here and someone presumes that we are in DST, they would be wrong, and they would make the wrong conversion.
That is exactly why I am enraged by "EST"-users out of season. Because they are deliberately insensitive to people who are actually in Standard Time.
But it actually seems to be deeply ingrained into American-centric corporate culture. I had a WFH job in a large company that was nearly 100% WFH, and they consistently used "EST" to their detriment. And I kept challenging this apparently-unwritten policy, and they just said "it's always been this way". And this month I've even caught UPS using it: yeah, the United Parcel Service was quoting transit times for one of my parcels in terms of EST, which was utterly nonsensical to me.
It seems that people don't mean "Standard Time" anymore when they write "EST" but simply "EaStern Time" and it is implicitly understood by human communicators to definitely not mean Standard Time except when it does. I went around with Gemini LLM about this for awhile. I cannot explain why people would embrace an obviously incorrect acronym, but they really have.
I used to play an MMOG called "Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates", and their servers were located in California. They used Pacific Time as their in-game clock and time zone. So they would call it "Pirate Time" and that easily fit into the mold of the "PT" abbreviation. It seemed perfect and foolproof to me.
However, the majority of the players on all the "oceans" (servers) converged on a different term for it. They called it "Game Time" or "GT" or "gt". I am unsure if this was a carry-over from common parlance in other games, or just something they felt more comfortable with using. I was not comfortable. People talking about "10:30 gt" was jarring and confusing to my neurospicy intellect. It surprised me, then annoyed me, then I had to mentally translate it back into "Pirate Time" and thus to "Pacific Time" as I was not in that time zone, and MST does not have a "constant offset" into Pacific Time.
So there was a case where the game admins prescribed, and adhered, to one standard term, and the players simply rejected it and supplied their own. So I do not know what "problem" was solved by that collective action, but mostly everyone seemed comfortable with it. It wasn't "wrong" or misleading per se because it was simply an invented acronym.
"EST" is wrong and it is not simply a preference to write the wrong timezone. If people like me, in perpetual MST, struggle to determine what offset is meant by "EST" then it's imprecise and misleading. We cannot merely say it's "descriptivist" and roll with it. Anyone who wants to avoid dealing with DST can simply write "ET" instead. Eastern Time. Easily interpreted, perennial, never wrong based on season or month.
But instead they've collectively insisted on co-opting an existing term and twisting it. Let's not be "descriptivist" in aiding and abetting misleading terms. Hopefully, if the U.S. completely bows out of Standard Time, something will change? I mean if we're permanently in DST, will corporations insist on sticking with their "EST" standards? That would be... bizarre.
I've been trying for years (by example) to popularize using PT, MT, CT, ET. Since it's always after a number ("Are you avail at 4ET?") there has never been one instance of confusion, and I save typing and avoid the small but real possibility of being interpreted too literally (suppose someone asks a computer "What time is 4:00 PM EST in London time" during the summer, and gets a 'technically correct' answer).
I don't have a similar answer for GMT/BST though.
This is the kind of imprecision that enrages me, though, because I am a resident of Arizona, and we observe MST all year long. It is currently MST. It is not MDT here. Therefore if we say, like, "it's 4:33pm MT" here and someone presumes that we are in DST, they would be wrong, and they would make the wrong conversion.
That is exactly why I am enraged by "EST"-users out of season. Because they are deliberately insensitive to people who are actually in Standard Time.
But it actually seems to be deeply ingrained into American-centric corporate culture. I had a WFH job in a large company that was nearly 100% WFH, and they consistently used "EST" to their detriment. And I kept challenging this apparently-unwritten policy, and they just said "it's always been this way". And this month I've even caught UPS using it: yeah, the United Parcel Service was quoting transit times for one of my parcels in terms of EST, which was utterly nonsensical to me.
It seems that people don't mean "Standard Time" anymore when they write "EST" but simply "EaStern Time" and it is implicitly understood by human communicators to definitely not mean Standard Time except when it does. I went around with Gemini LLM about this for awhile. I cannot explain why people would embrace an obviously incorrect acronym, but they really have.
This is how language works, things mean what people using language want it to mean. Not the more precise version you want it to mean.
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Then they are wrong.
Prescriptivism is wrong.
I used to play an MMOG called "Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates", and their servers were located in California. They used Pacific Time as their in-game clock and time zone. So they would call it "Pirate Time" and that easily fit into the mold of the "PT" abbreviation. It seemed perfect and foolproof to me.
However, the majority of the players on all the "oceans" (servers) converged on a different term for it. They called it "Game Time" or "GT" or "gt". I am unsure if this was a carry-over from common parlance in other games, or just something they felt more comfortable with using. I was not comfortable. People talking about "10:30 gt" was jarring and confusing to my neurospicy intellect. It surprised me, then annoyed me, then I had to mentally translate it back into "Pirate Time" and thus to "Pacific Time" as I was not in that time zone, and MST does not have a "constant offset" into Pacific Time.
So there was a case where the game admins prescribed, and adhered, to one standard term, and the players simply rejected it and supplied their own. So I do not know what "problem" was solved by that collective action, but mostly everyone seemed comfortable with it. It wasn't "wrong" or misleading per se because it was simply an invented acronym.
"EST" is wrong and it is not simply a preference to write the wrong timezone. If people like me, in perpetual MST, struggle to determine what offset is meant by "EST" then it's imprecise and misleading. We cannot merely say it's "descriptivist" and roll with it. Anyone who wants to avoid dealing with DST can simply write "ET" instead. Eastern Time. Easily interpreted, perennial, never wrong based on season or month.
But instead they've collectively insisted on co-opting an existing term and twisting it. Let's not be "descriptivist" in aiding and abetting misleading terms. Hopefully, if the U.S. completely bows out of Standard Time, something will change? I mean if we're permanently in DST, will corporations insist on sticking with their "EST" standards? That would be... bizarre.
5 replies →
I also only use the S variant in human conversation in my time zone.
I assure you that I am human and never, ever, write EDT in a conversation. My phone even tries to autocorrect it to EST
This is why I generally try to avoid it and just call it “Eastern“ or “Eastern US“ if talking with someone who might not be in the US.
Which is annoying.