Dear Sir,

It has long been a concern that there are two systems for showing the date on documents — the American and the so-called English system.

Until recently, only a few businesses employed the American system of month, day, year. It was confusing, but, with a bit of Sherlock Holmes deduction, it was usually possible to interpret the date.

But today, with more and more Bermuda businesses using off-the-shelf American IT systems, the prevalence of the arguably “wrong” system is greater. We are a British protectorate after all. As far as I can gather, more than 90 per cent of Bermudian and non-American residents use, and greatly prefer, the British system. Furthermore, it is more logical: day, month, year.

I have noticed that the banks are dishing up to us statements and other documents; some with the English and some with the American dates. This is horribly confusing — and annoying.

Information technology is pretty sophisticated, and it is not a massive undertaking for banks and other organisations to ask their IT people to make the appropriate adjustment.

It is time the Government stepped in to establish a law that one or the other system be used on every document by every business in Bermuda — and this would include, for example, garages, some of whom handwrite invoices.

I have done a modest amount of research and it would seem that the United States stands virtually alone in the world with what I deem — and I will have a few opponents over this — the “wrong” system. Even their neighbours, Canada and Mexico, employ the system used by Britain and most of the rest of the world.

I would speculate that the MPs of our two political parties would come together in support of a motion to enter into law the logical sequence of day, month, year. Once passed into law, businesses and organisations could be given, for example, six months to comply and make life much less confusing for all of us.

If there are any Members of Parliament who would be interested in putting forward such a motion, I may be reached at 292-2670.

ROBIN BLACKBURNE