Why is CET called MET?

[Paul Eggert]

[The following item, posted on comp.std.internat, is of interest to
the tz mailing list.  If Hullah's right, `MET' should be replaced by
`CET' everywhere in <URL:ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata96h.tar.gz>
except for the `MET' timezone itself.  I realize this might break
things, though.  Comments?  --eggert]


From: Peter Hullah <Peter.Hullah at eurocontrol.fr>
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Why is CET called MET?
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 17:25:44 +0200
Organization: EUROCONTROL European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
Message-ID: <31C578F8.258F at eurocontrol.fr>

Hi,

I'm sure this has done the rounds many times before, but I'm new
to this group and don't have the archives handy.

Can someone please tell me why the heck Central European Time
(i.e. the timezone for Central Europe) - which has been called
that since I was a kid (a long time!) and still is called that
by every English speaking European who cares, especially
the satellite TV stations - is known as MET in International
standards? Where on Earth is 'Middle Europe'?

Doesn't the ISO group, or others, responsible for writing the
standards (ISO 8601 et al) have a native English-speaker on it?

Thanks

Pete

--

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