[tz] permanent DST and North American time zone names

[John Hawkinson]

Chris Walton via tz <tz at iana.org> wrote on Wed, 16 Mar 2022
at 00:45:51 EDT in <CAG55VO6gi_jqBPzLOZZJEDLz13Dx2od-Ok3v+gOYr8XdnCN5HA at mail.gmail.com>:

I do find Option 2 extremely appealing, that the US would continue to stay in EDT/CDT/MDT/PDT, and so maintain the UTC offsets that are well-known to all, especially well-known to the rest of the world.

> *Option #2*: allow permanent daylight saving
> This could be implemented without too many complications, but it goes
> against the philosophy that daylight saving is an alternate time offset
> that is only used for part of the year.
> This is not my favorite option even though it is probably the least
> disruptive.  I do not think it will make any sense 20 years from now.
>  e.g. Los Angeles, Phoenix, Vancouver, and Whitehorse would be on
> permanent *Pacific
> Daylight Time*
>         Thu Feb  1 00:00:00 *PDT* 2024   (UTC-07)
>         Thu Aug  1 00:00:00 *PDT* 2024   (UTC-07)
>  e.g. New York and Toronto would be on permanent *Eastern Daylight Time*:
>         Thu Feb  1 00:00:00 *EDT *2024   (UTC-04)
>         Thu Aug  1 00:00:00 *EDT* 2024   (UTC-04)


I don't think the "make any sense 20 years from now" argument holds.
After a few years of regularly talking about Eastern Daylight Time, we'll accept EDT as the time we have and the label will feel opaque and people won't feel obliged to parse it, as happens with any element of language and semantics.
Just as, you know, people can talk about a.m. and p.m. without thinking or knowing that they stand for ante meridiem and post meridiem. Or amplitude modulation :)

Of course, that's not the only argument against doing this.

--
jhawk at alum.mit.edu
John Hawkinson