I’m sorry but it doesn’t make sense TO ME. Based on what I was taught, regardless of the month, I think what matters first is to know what day of the month you are in, if at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of said month. After you know that, you can find out the month to know where you are in the year.
What is the benefit of doing it the other way around?
EDIT: To avoid misunderstandings:
- I am NOT making fun OF ANYONE.
- I am NOT negatively judging ANYTHING.
- I am totally open to being corrected and LEARN.
- This post is out of pure and honest CURIOSITY.
So PLEASE, don’t take it the wrong way.
It’s two less syllables to say “April Fourth” than “The Fourth of April”.
That’s about the only advantage it has.
Edit:
I was thinking about this grammatically. English is an Adjective first language where the modifying adjective goes before the base noun.
In my example, April is the adjective. It tells the reader what kind of Fourth it is.
It’s at least a kind of logic.
Understandable.
FYI, I added more in the base comment.
MORE understandable, Thanks.
Generally we say June 1, not 1 June or 1st of June… So 6/1 makes complete sense.
For anything “official”, like a work spreadsheet, I’ll use ISO format YYYY-MM-DD for clarity and ease of filtering/sorting.
Who is “we”? Americans? I usually hear Americans say “June 1st,” not “June 1.”
We meaning USAians, since we’re the kinda the only ones who use Month-Day
It’s just an example. We say June first, that’s why we write 6/1
Are you really going to nitpick over the st and ignore their entire point?
Not ignoring their point – I agree with the explanation for 6/1, but that’s not relevant here. Genuinely am not sure if they were from an area where they say “1” instead of “1st.”
The “st” is implied, it’s just one of those things you have to get used to. Like reading prices here, it looks like “$25”, but you would read it as “twenty-five dollars.” No one says “it costs dollar-sign twenty five.”
Ah, I didn’t know about this rule when pronouncing dates. Thanks!
The month tells you more about conditions like weather but that’s kinda it.
Am American and I hate the MM/DD/YY(YY) format. Unfortunately its what’s been taught and used as the standard date format for a long time.
I much prefer the ISO standard of YYYY-MM-DD. It’s the superior format logically moving from the largest calendar unit to the smallest. Also superior for date ordering files.
Yeah, I resently saw it and I agree with you.
Idk, maybe like all U.Sians traditions, this was an Old-World British thing Americans preserved, since it’s a more direct term of the English language, more direct than Day then Month
so unless it’s a special day, if not holiday, for U.Sians like 4th of July, by default, Month then Day
I don’t know, that’s just how I learned it in school so it feels natural for me to use/say.
This post kinda stinks of “why doesn’t the US just switch to metric? Are they stupid?”
Sorry if it gives that impression, it is not at all my intention, it is pure and honest curiosity. That’s why I avoided any bad word and put it in a subjective point of view (“I think / I believe”)
Not switching to metric is stupid. Fighting for independence from the empire, but then clinging to the imperial system that has only disadvantages over the metric system - that just screams not driven by reason
Out of curiosity: do you also find it weird that (I’m assuming) you use hour:minute order when reading the clock, instead of minute:hour? Would saying the minute first make more sense to you?
No
This is already done often.
Quarter after 4 aka 4:15
10 to 5 aka 4:50.
Half past noon aka 12:30
I don’t have a clue why we do MM-DD-YYYY and personally I hate how dates are done in the west, to a degree.
For a maths course I’ve been taking at college, I never use MM-DD in my notebook because that and DD-MM are stupid in my opinion. I always spell out the month first to ensure I don’t get mixed up. I honestly envy that some languages like Chinese and Japanese have an individual character to help distinguish between month and day.
Also, I would love if every country using the MM-DD or vice versa format could all agree on which format to use for everyday things.
Idk but I think it works best for us. I like how July 4th 2025 sounds over 04 July 2025. Call it cultural differences I suppose and that’s that.
The short answer is, it’s what we were taught in school. Like many preferences, it’s shaped by the culture we grow up and live in.
I’m sorry but it doesn’t make sense to me.
Of course not, you were raised and live in a different culture; so, your preferences are different.
Ultimately, the right answer is ISO8601. It’s unambiguous and sorts well on computers. But, I don’t think any culture is teaching that as the primary way to write dates, so we’re stuck with the crappy ways.
YYYYMMDD is commonly used throughout East Asia.
There is an American subculture teaching and using ISO 8601; the US military. They don’t call it that, but I learned later that’s what it is. They enforce YYYY-MM-DD on all documents.
Most significant digits first. You write the thousands place before the hundreds, you write the month before the day. Of course, the whole argument is blow away when you write the year at the end instead of the beginning. (ISO YYYY-MM-DD dates for the win.)
Most significant digits first.
That would only make sense if the US wrote the year first, but they don’t. They just seem to slap the date together in a random order
I think that’s context relevant though. If we think about when dates are most frequently used (news, business, planning) it’s typically within the year (or month will give context).
That added with the fact it’s not uncommon in some situations to just provide month/day.
That being said, I don’t think either is better or worse. Just a preference kinda thing, unlike the issue between metric and imperial units.
little Endian entered the chat.
I write the date a bit different depending on which format its going on.
For example, computers like to sort things alphabetically. If I’m writing electronic diary entries, I’ll name the document as “2025-06-01.”
If I’m hand signing a legal document, I prefer to sign it as “01JUN2025” or “01JUN25” if space is an issue.
If the format is preselected and deviation isn’t allowed, I’ll just write it like everyone else does.
Personally, I like dating things in ascending or descending order. Day month year, or year month day.
Personally, I like dating things in ascending or descending order
Hey! Me too! 🤝
I’m a fan of the 01JUN2025 format. It’s unambiguous and uses about the same space as other traditional formats.
It’s how I was taught in the Navy to write dates. I stood a lot of watches and made a lot of log entries.
As an American it was just what we were taught. However, when I started creating code and being pedantic about organizing files by date, I now prefer YYYYMMDD format as it is, chronologically speaking, superior when prefacing files with it. In this case, in my opinion, it’s better to have the year and then month first prior to day.
To each their own, variety is the spice of life.
This. I usually use MMDDYYYY when I’m dealing with other (US) people and ISO standard for my own stuff.
ISO is my true north.
What you say is interesting. Having a way of organizing time that suits your needs. That’s why I asked if there was any benefit in the way Americans (and apparently also Chinese) represent time.
Interesting thing about how Chinese time is organized is locations are also stated big to small. Last names then first names etc.
Locations have a last name and a first name in Chinese?
I mean the larger family name comes before the personal name. Implying a connection between number, place, and naming sequences
Chinese is also weird imho. If I remember correctly, they put the details of an action first in a sentece and the verb that defines the action itself goes last with some exceptions.
Hungarian comes to my mind which is similar and always follows the context first, details later rule. They use “yyyy.mm.dd.”, “family name first, given name last”, “country, city, street, street number order for locations”, and the word order of their grammar is similar too, details are always at the end of the sentence.
You’re thinking of Japanese not Chinese. Chinese grammar is more similar to English.
That’s interesting about Hungarian though!
China’s first name is actually Jim, believe it or not.
This is the only format that truly makes sense, as it is both unambiguous and, as you noted, sortable.
My guess is the month is most relevant to an agrarian society. It tells you where you are in the growing cycle that the entire culture revolves around. The day and year offer little practical utility to a 19th century farmer.
Oh, that make more sense and seems plausible! Thanks!
ITT: defensive answers and ISO-8601 supporters.
Yes, I didn’t quite calculate how controversial the topic would be, my bad…
I think the clear answer is that there is no real reason other than habit and sunk cost fallacy.
See also the metric system, A4 paper, and daylight-saving time.
I think the clear answer is that there is no real reason other than habit and sunk cost fallacy.
There may have been some historical event that lead to this convention dominating over others (though I don’t really know where to start lookin)
I’m not Mexican, but this reminds me of a Mexican ranchera that says “No cabe duda que es verdad que la costumbre es más fuerte que el amor” (There is no doubt that it is true that habit is stronger than love).
