In the following sentence: "It came into existence on or by 30 September." What does "by 30 September" mean?
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3Related: “I will do it by Monday”. Does it mean before the beginning or before the end of Monday?; Does “up to 'date'” include the end date? What about date ranges (“the week of…”)?; till vs. until in “from Apr. 21st till/until Apr. 28th”; “Since”, “until”, “from”, “to” on invoices or date ranges of a form; Translation for Dutch “tot en met”: until and including?. – choster May 29 '14 at 15:35
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It seems to mean by the 30th of September. – Tristan r May 30 '14 at 12:22
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It means "exactly on September 30, or on September 30, it was in existence." The second half of this means that it could have come into existence prior to Sept 30, but the speaker doesn't know exactly when. If the question is more about what hour it came into existence, that is purposefully left vague by this construction.
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