A writers guide to daylight saving time
I have some grammatical bones to pick with this whole turning-back-the-clock business. (BTW, we do "fall back" one hour this weekend.)
OK, back to my regularly?scheduled rant. Or, should I wait an hour? I'm confused.
Before we get to the grammar, let me say moving our clocks backward (or forward in the spring) is asinine?and soul-crushing.
But seriously, a few notes about this archaic practice.
Save yourself a character
I don't know about saving time, but I love to save characters in my copy. If you do, too, you'll love this:
Falling back or springing forward is called daylight saving time. It is NOT daylight savings time, even though predictive text will try to add an "s" onto "saving." Your email subject line just got one character shorter. You're welcome.
If you need a good way to remember it, think of it this way: When you adjust your clock, you are saving daylight. You would not be "savings" daylight.
I actually think the term should be hyphenated to avoid confusion, as in: daylight-saving time. But I don't write the stylebooks, I just trash them.
Cut out the capitals
Daylight saving time is not capitalized. That's it. That's the tip.
The right way to write it
Eastern, Central, Mountain, Southwest Northern California Wine Country. If you are a writer of any type, you eventually have to use time zones and clock time in your copy. Depending on what time of year it is, you'll have to write it differently so your audience knows when the heck you are talking about, especially if you have a national audience.
When we are on daylight saving time from March to November, times should be followed by PDT, MDT, CDT, EDT, etc., to correspond with your time zone. During standard time, use PST, MST, CST, EST, etc. The abbreviations refer to time zones, as I'm sure you know: Pacific Standard Time, Mountain Standard Time, Eastern Daylight Time, Central Daylight Time, etc.
It looks like this:
?? "We are offering our webinar on dealing with the torturous time change at 10 a.m. EDT. You must be registered by 9:30 a.m. EDT."
If you didn't have the time zone, you might confuse your readers. However, if you're a local newspaper serving a small town in northern Montana, you probably don't need to identify time zone. Use your judgment. You have it for a reason.
NOTE: Did you see how I capitalized Central Standard Time and all those others up there? I didn't do that to entertain myself. If you need to fully spell out your time zone, capitalize all those words.
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Beginning and ending
Most people just think of daylight saving time as moving their clocks forward or backward. In reality, daylight saving time is beginning and ending.
Daylight saving time begins in the spring, when we move our clocks forward one hour. It ends in the fall.
So, this weekend daylight saving time is ending. We fall back to standard time. We will remain on standard time until March 13.?
You cannot manipulate the Earth's rotation
I cringe every time I hear someone say something like this: "Oh, hell yeah, we get to add an hour onto our day! Let's drink some more! Wooooo!"
No, you're not adding an hour onto the day. It remains 24 hours. The Earth will continue to rotate as normal no matter how often we adjust our clocks. The sun will rise and set as usual.
We are, however, adding an hour of daylight to the day in the spring. Since we advance the clocks forward, sunset occurs later in the day. Until later in the spring, it's also pitch black when kids go to school or when we wake up in the morning.
More reasons to move to Hawaii
Daylight saving time is observed in every state but Hawaii and Arizona, except Arizona's Navajo Nation.
Additionally, the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands also are smart enough to ignore DST.
Bonus time tip
For all that you hold dear, can you please stop using ":00" with your times? If it happens at 1 p.m., you have no reason to write "1:00 p.m." In fact, readers are probably more likely to mistake that for some other time if they are skimming copy.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sleep for 17 hours to prepare my body for the time change.
#GrumpyGrammarGuru #CopywritingTips
Program Specialist | Business Development
3 年This is the bane of my existence for the physical torture, as well as the mistaken use. That and when people misuse “good” and “well.” Have you covered that groaner? ??
Lean Leader, Problem Solver, Facilitator, Listener
3 年To make matters worse, I have a colleague in the Netherlands ?that I collaborate with on a weekly basis. They too recognize daylight saving time but choose not to start for a couple weeks, or I guess I mean end for a couple weeks. Allow the confusion to ensue.?
Servant Leader, Technologist, Innovator, Cloud based SaaS
3 年I have cohorts in six or seven time zones. I just tell them "Pacific Time" - I leave out the Daylight Saving indicator (because it is asinine and soul-crushing). They can Google it (such that Google is a verb) if they are confused.