What's an incredibly american thing americans don't realize is american?

Let me clarify the 20.5 vs 5.02.

20.5 goes [tens place][ones place].[tenths place]. I've changed the presentation around to be [tenths place].[ones place][tens place] when I wrote it as 5.02. It's absolutely absurd and that's the point. It DOES mean the exact same thing if I've changed the presentation around to be smallest-middle-largest unit. It only seems to mean something different to you because you assumed I was using your preferred presentation of numbers.

The same goes for dates like 03-04 and 04-03, which ALSO literally mean two very different things, even though they are just the same information with different presentation. But how is anyone going to know which one I am using unless we have an agreed upon standard for how numbers work? Which we do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

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