When giving times and dates, such as for opening and closing times of attractions, restaurants and bars, use the following formats:-
Use the 24 hour clock.
Give times in the local time zone.
Always show two digits for the hour and two digits for minutes using a colon as the separator; eg: 09:00, not 09.00 nor 09-00 and not just 09 and never 09:0 or 9:00.
Time ranges use a hyphen as the separator between the two times and are unspaced; eg: 09:00-17:30
Where an establishment does not close on a particular day or range of days, write 24 hours, not 00:00-24:00.
If the establishment doesn't close all week: 24/7
am/pm alternative[edit]
As an alternative, a 12 hour, am/pm format may be used consistently in any destination article where the 24 hour format is locally very rarely seen in print, eg: 10:30am-5pm.
Choose to deviate from our standard, 24 hour format only to follow overwhelming local written usage. Ask yourself: "which format will visitors see in newspapers, on shop doors, and on train schedules?" If the answer is "a mixture", then use our standard 24 hour format.
- Only in this alternative am/pm system, use "noon" and "midnight", not 12am and 12pm.
- Only in this alternative 12-hour format, minutes are not shown when not required, eg: 5pm, not 5:00pm.
- Spaces and periods (full stops) should be left out, eg: 10:30am-5pm, not 10:30 A.M. – 5 P.M.
- Spaces should be left out for noon and midnight too, eg: 10am-noon.
- No single article should mix the standard 24 hour format with this alternative 12 hour variation.
Days of the week[edit]
Abbreviate to the minimum number of letters for clarity: M Tu W Th F Sa Su, especially in listings, but
- spell out if it looks odd or ambiguous in a particular context or when it is part of a named day, eg: "Good Friday", "Fat Tuesday".
- a range of days is shown with a hyphen: eg: M-Th specifies Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday.
- spaces should be left out, eg: M-F not M - F or M thru F.
- also include the dash for a pair of consecutive days, eg: Su-M not Su M.
- for a list of days that are not in a range, separate the day abbreviations with slashes; eg: when a shop is open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday but closed on Tuesdays and Thursdays write M/W/F 08:30-17:30
- when combining days or months with time, put the months first, then days and finally the times eg: May-Sep M-F 10:00-14:00 rather than 10:00-14:00 M-F May-Sep.
- when listing alternative date ranges (for example, seasonal opening hours) separate the alternatives with a semi-colon eg: Hall of Mirrors 3 May-8 Sep M-Sa 08:30-18:00; 9 Sep-2 May Th-Sa 10:30-16:00. Horror Maze May-Sep M-Sa 08:30-18:00; Oct-Feb F-Sa 10:30-13:00;
- for all seven days, use Daily. Do not use "every day" or "Su-Sa". eg: Jun-Sep daily 08:30-11:00, 12:30-18:00
Use the date format of dd mmm yyyy, eg: 10 Jan 2003.
Abbreviate months to three letters: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec, especially in listings, but
- if it looks odd or ambiguous in a particular context, spell it out.
- avoid using dates such as 10/1/03, 10-1-03 or 10/1/2003 as this can mean 10 Jan 2003 or 1 Oct 2003 to different people!
- By default, years are numbered according to the Western Dionysian era (also referred to as the Common Era) and the year is assumed to be AD (or CE).
- This means that in the phrase "Queen Victoria died in 1901", it is unnecessary to write either "Queen Victoria died in 1901 AD" or "Queen Victoria died in 1901 CE".
- For years earlier than 1 (AD or CE), that year is followed by the two letters BC (written in upper case, unspaced, without periods or full stops, and separated from the year number by a non-breaking space:"
" rather than a simple space).
- To indicate approximately, use the un-italicised abbreviation "c. " (followed by a non-breaking space) rather than circa, ca., or approx.
- Eg: "The temple was built c. 700 BC"
- In a group of years, the plural 's' is not separated by an apostrophe from the years that precede it: "organised crime was rife in the roaring 20s" rather than "organised crime was rife in the roaring 20 's"
Duration[edit]
Abbreviate
- year or years to yr
- month or months to mo
- week or weeks to wk
- hour or hours to h
- minutes to min
- seconds to s
For durations involving hours and minutes, show the number of hours in figures, immediately followed by "h", immediately followed by the number of minutes in figures.
Eg: 2h15 denotes a duration of 2 hours 15 minutes especially in listings, but spell out if it looks odd or ambiguous in a particular context.
See also[edit]
