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I understand that on is used for dates and at for times, as in On vs At with date and time. But what can I use when I have a string consists of both a date and a time? The issue is that I can’t change the date-time string to add at between the date and the time—so my options are:

On 19 January 2015 10:53
At 19 January 2015 10:53

Which one is the better option?

Community
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Mathematics
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    How about at 10:53, 19 January 2015? – Andrew Leach Jan 29 '15 at 11:26
  • I can't change the format in this context, only power i got is to either add a word in start or maybe at end – Mathematics Jan 29 '15 at 11:31
  • In that case, assuming this is a list of data, I'd suggest you don't bother at all and leave it as a naked date/time. However, in the linked question, the OP went for at. If you have to have something, at is better because the time trumps the date in terms of granularity. – Andrew Leach Jan 29 '15 at 11:35
  • How is this not an exact, precise duplicate of the question linked to? The situation is exactly the same: a string containing a date and a time is received as input in some software and cannot be changed. A preposition must be chosen. It’s the exact same question. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 29 '15 at 11:43
  • @JanusBahsJacquet are you for serious ? – Mathematics Jan 29 '15 at 12:54
  • @CustomizedName Yes. There is absolutely nothing in your question that isn’t precisely the same as in the one you yourself linked to. How is that not a duplicate? – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 29 '15 at 12:56
  • @JanusBahsJacquet is "Date and Time" (2 words) are same as "DateTime" (1 word) ? – Mathematics Jan 29 '15 at 12:57
  • No, of course not, because ‘DateTime’ is not a word at all. It’s the name of various programming variables. It’s not English, any more than, say, ‘getElementById’ is. That’s completely irrelevant to the question. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 29 '15 at 13:00
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    either way - you understand what I meant... so it's at least not a duplicate question – Mathematics Jan 29 '15 at 13:03
  • Some of the terminology in the question is different. The underlying question is almost as close a duplicate as I've seen. – Chris H Jan 29 '15 at 13:13
  • @CustomizedName No, I understood what you meant which makes this an exact duplicate. You still haven’t given any reason that there is anything in this question that isn’t precisely the same as in the other question. Nothing. It’s not only a duplicate, it’s an exact duplicate, and it should simply be merged with that question. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 29 '15 at 23:57
  • @JanusBahsJacquet You are the one who is complaining so you should come up with a reason not me... maybe you need couple of days break... Happy weekend :-) – Mathematics Jan 30 '15 at 07:19
  • No, that's not how close-votes work. I voted to close this question as a duplicate, because it's identical to another question. That is my reason. If you don't think that close-vote is warranted, it's up to you to edit the question so as to make it clear why it's not identical to the other question. The fact that you haven't done this shows that you realise that it is actually a duplicate. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jan 30 '15 at 10:31
  • Nope, the reason I didn't edited is because I find the answer below, good bye now! – Mathematics Jan 30 '15 at 14:25

3 Answers3

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The way I see it you have two options:

  1. Treat it as English and write the code to parse the string (I doubt you'd have to write it in most languages, I'd expect a library function).

  2. Treat it as displaying a data field and just label it. Then you might as well say timestamp: 19 January 2015 10:53 as you're not writing a real sentence anyway. Better than timestamp would of course be a more specific word like logged, modified, etc.

I'm afraid to say that you would like the best of both worlds, and there is no best-of-both-worlds solution.

Chris H
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You would use "on", since that signifies the day, which is more important to know than the time. "At" is never used for a particular date. You are correct in saying that the full written or spoken sentence would be "On January 19th (US usage) at 10:53." Reversing the order does not make a difference: "At 10:53 on January 19th."

dusty rodgers
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    This is a solid answer, but best-practice on EL&U and Stack Exchange sites in general is to back up solid answers with solid references to authoritative sources. – Dan Bron Jan 29 '15 at 17:43
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    There's an answer with the exact opposite opinion: https://english.stackexchange.com/a/501599/10332 – kravemir Nov 08 '20 at 11:02
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None.

On 19 January 2015 at 10:53
At 10:53 on 19 January 2015

19 January 2015, 10:53 hrs

Kris
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