to be honest i think that this is a fair comment accordingly and as this is a much debated article i would like to propose this revised opening paragraph the terms old style or o s and new style or n s are used in english language historical studies to indicate that the dating system used in the source material is one or other of the historic methods for determining the day on which the year starts in the old style dating the year began on march whereas in the new style it began on january death warrant of charles i web page of the uk national archives a demonstration of new style meaning julian calendar with a start of year adjustment additionally more so in other parts of the world the terms are used to indicate the change from the historic calendar for example the julian calendar in europe and the americas to the modern gregorian calendar the october november revolution britannica encyclopaedia a demonstration of new style meaning the gregorian calendar stockton j r date miscellany i the old and new styles the terms 'old style' and 'new style' are now commonly used for both the 'start of year' and 'leap year' gregorian calendar changes england wales both in scotland i believe that properly and historically the 'styles' really refer only to the 'start of year' change from march th to january and that the 'leap year' change should be described as the change from julian to gregorian spathaky mike old style new style dates and the change to the gregorian calendar increasingly parish registers in addition to a new year heading after th march showing for example ' ' had another heading at the end of the following december indicating ' ' this showed where the new style started even though the old style continued until th march we as historians have no excuse for creating ambiguity and must keep to the notation described above in one of its forms it is no good writing simply th january for a reader is left wondering whether we have used the old or the new style reckoning the date should either be written th january o s if indeed it was old style or as th january the hyphen is best avoided as it can be interpreted as indicating a period of time references are unchanged from current version comments