Why Is Coordinated Universal Time Abbreviated as UTC?

It seems a bit odd that Coordinated Universal Time is abbreviated as UTC instead of something like CUT or TUC, right? There's a good reason for the moniker though.

You see, the time zones and time standards we have in place now were designed to be accepted all across the world. This also means that there are many other languages in play. For example, the abbreviation UTC was actually chosen to compliment speakers of both the English and French languages.

In English, if we were to properly abbreviate the term Coordinated Universal Time it would come to something like CUT. However, in French it's called Temps Universal Coordonne so that would be designated as TUC.

Therefore, to mininize confusion and adopt a single label that's acceptable for all languages the International Astronomical Union and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) chose the abbreviation UTC.

In addition, UTC is remarkably similar to the moniker for Universal Time which is abbreviated as UT. So in a natural way, it all flows together.

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