Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[dido4]

Please show me how to write. There has time order when we write about the time. Are we writing from small to big? Or from big to small? Are there rules about writing time?

For examples:

1. He came at 6 on Wed. on January 3rd, 1990 in the morning.(small to big)
or
2.He came on Wed. on January 3rd,1990 at 6 in the morning.

How to write the time order?

Thank you

[CP]

I've never heard of a rule about writing it any particular way, and both of your suggestions sound all right, although I would rewrite them a little to clean up the grammar:

1. He came at 6 in the morning on Wed., January 3, 1990.

2. He came on Wed., January 3, 1990 at 6 in the morning.

Notice you don't make it an ordinal number (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) when writing out the date. In speaking, you might say, "See you on April 2nd," and sometimes in writing you might say, "The meeting of April 2nd started at 10:00 a.m." But when you put the year in, just use cardinal numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.).

Also, you have "on" too many places.
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