Since the day is the shortest it should go 1st tbh

44 comments

  1. because that’s how we were taught and how our parents were taught. I get that it might not fit the same logic other countries go by but i don’t think it’s significant enough to really need logic.

  2. Pretty sure we fought a war over this. When we broke from that tyrant King George, we also broke from the crown’s frankly authoritarian way of writing dates.

  3. Someone decided we shouldn’t conform to logical, modern standards… Because ‘Merica

    See also: the metric system

  4. I work with US and UK offices. Have to switch the date protocol in my mind when I flip from one country to another.

  6. For the same reason you do it backwards – it’s the way we were taught.

  7. We write it the way we would say it.

    February 4th becomes 2-4

    December 29th becomes 12-29 etc.

  10. It is the same way in which we verbalize a date. Hence why it’s written that way.

  11. I wonder if part of it is appointments and such. Like if I’m going to the doctors in two months that’s the bigger date to remember than the day if that makes sense

  12. The answer is cause it’s how it’s always been done and taught and there’s never been a reason enough to switch, cause they’re both fine.

    But I will die on this hill, it makes a hell of a lot of sense: it’s written how you say it outloud, sure. But additionally, if I’m learning about an upcoming event, the most pertinent info for me to calibrate when that event is is month and then day. If you say “I’m having a party on the 24th,” I’ll almost always ask what month, I won’t really ask what year.

    And the way my brain contextualizes when that is is kinda: “ok, what 30 day period are we talking about? Is it like right now, soon or a ways from now? Cool, now which specific day?”

    I think the argument then should be Y-M-D makes most sense (it’s how you sort things electronically) but the year is really redundant most of the time, so in the US we just tack it on after the fact. The month is almost never redundant.

    So to sum, similar to Fahrenheit , it may not be the most logical, mathematical seeming thing in the world but it kinda fits a human scale better, and we’ve done it long enough that it works fine. Until and unless some major battle or event on like June 5th actually happens on May 6th, then it’ll be fine

  13. It depends on the context. Most of it has to do with how a computer with display or organize the information.

    If I’m doing something in a spreadsheet for a yearly thing I’ll do MM/DD. If I’m naming files I do YYYYMMDD.

    Unlike most people in my area, on paper documents I sign I’ll put DD/MM/YY.

  14. Days, months, years are

    There are 12 months in a year (smallest number)

    28-31 Days in a month: (Second smallest number)

    0-basically to Eternity or 1-2023 (Largest number there)

    How does this not make sense?

    It’s literally smallest to largest

  15. YYYY/MM/DD or gtfo. y’all are all wrong etc.

    —-

    Jokes aside, June 39th, 2099. Month, Date. Year.

    You lot (most of you anyway) say 29 June 1499. Date, Month, Year.

  16. I switch randomly between day/month/year and month/day/year, but I always use the word for the month, two digits for the day, and four digits for the year to minimize confusion

    So July 04 1776 or 04 July 1776, never 7/4/76

  17. Because that’s how we say it.

    To us, you do it backwards and I have to flip it around if I say it out loud.

    Why would shortest go first? If I’m using the month in the first place, it’s because it’s of at least as much importance as the day, so it may as well go first.

  18. I actually do think it would make more sense to put the day first, but it’s not something I’m very concerned with 😂

  19. Well, no. If you’re going to do the whole thing year month day makes the most sense because it sorts properly when it inevitably winds up being stored/accessed as text for no good reason.

    As to why we say and write it the way we do, it’s the same reason we do a lot of things that weird the world out: It’s what the British were doing when we were colonies.

    They were later pressured to change their convention to match the rest of Europe while we didn’t have that issue.

  20. I write the date properly… YYYY-MM-DD

    Edit – In all seriousness, I suppose it’s similar… within a given year, MM-DD will sort better than DD-MM.

  22. >Why do u write the dates starting with the month then the day then the year?

    That’s the way it’s done here.

    >Since the day is the shortest it should go 1st tbh

    No. If we want it to make sense, it should go largest to smallest. That’s how people find things on maps, they work their way down.

  23. I wrote the date however I want because we don’t have to meet some rigid expectation or standard.

  24. YMD is truly the superior format for sorting because you go from broadest to narrowest. As you say, the day is the shortest so it gives you the least frame of reference and really only works when the year and month is already understood.

  25. I don’t know if there’s an answer to this besides ‘that’s just how we do it’. But I will say, when you’re telling a story saying the month first is better. “It was the day before my birthday, June 16th, and…” Saying the month first gives me a bit more time to visualize June, the setting. This is why Americans are more gregarious, social, and productive.

  26. The real question is, why do whatever country you are from do things differently than the US? Everything we do is better, and tbh, every country should follow our example. /s

    But really, why do others care how we do these things? More importantly, why do other countries think that the way they do things is the only way every country should do it. I always found it so strange that people care as much as they do about such things.

  27. There’s more days in a month that are two days than one day. And most of us write single digits with a zero in front. So 06/19/2023.

  29. Why? We adopted it from the Brits and just kept it like that ever since.

    https://secure-images.rarenewspapers.com/ebayimgs/6.93.2019/image070.jpg

    https://lisalouisecooke.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/London-Standard-BNA.jpg

    http://edwardianpromenade.com/wp-content/uploads/scan0001.jpg

    ———

    >Since the day is shortest it should go 1st tbh

    Huh? Name one other number that works this way.

    Every number I can think of has the largest increments on the left which progressively get faster/smaller towards the right.

    How can you say the smallest number goes on the left? 😂

    I’m not saying the numerical date format Americans use follows the way other numbers works but for sure, writing day/month/year is completely ass backwards.

    There’s exactly one format that makes sense as far as ordering the numbers the way we write every single other number and that’s year-month-day.. The way many Asian people write it. (Like, billions of people write the numerical date logically and it’s neither Americans nor Euros)

    If we were to change formats, that’s the one we would change it to.. and that’s the one you backward writing Europeans should change to instead of thinking smallest->largest is the way numbers are written.. or at the very least, you should chill with the smugness.. you’re writing it wronger than we are.. At least our month/day is in proper counting order

  30. the month gives the time of year. May is the start of spring, storms, planting…. the 28 is just a number before 29

  31. Because verbally when we say dates we say the month first.

    Year-Month-Day would sort files chronologically if you sorted by filename, so your convention isn’t any better.

  32. We write dates that way because that’s how we say the date. An American would say today is June nineteenth 2023 and would write that as 6/19/23.

    If you’re looking for logical ways to write dates, yyyy/mm/dd is the most logical because it always increments upward. mm/dd/yyyy and dd/mm/yyyy do not.

  33. Because when we say a date out loud we usually say “June 19th 2023” so that’s how we write it. I know other places usually say “the 19th of June, 2023” but that adds two extra syllables to the phrase and as Americans we’re all about efficiency so “June 19, 2023” is actually more efficient way to say it and write it.

  34. Because different countries do things differently. It’s not that difficult and it’s not that deep. There’s no national board of Americans looking for ways to perplex & apparently annoy Europeans.

    C’est la vie!

  36. It’s an arbitrary choice. It’s different from how your country does it but that doesn’t make one system better than the other.

  37. Two reasons:

    1. We say it that way. “June 19th” is way more common than “the 19th of June”

    2. Filing. If you’re looking for something filed away by date, it traditionally would have almost certainly already been separated out by year, so then you’d want to break it down by month and then further by date. Since the year is usually already separated, it goes at the end and at the front you’ve got it organized by month and then day. If day was put first, now you’ve got the 1st of every month together, then the 2nd of every month together, etc.

  41. Just always done it that way.

    Then I found out it makes some weird people on the internet very angry and that’s a nice added bonus.

  42. Why don’t you use year/month/day so that sorting things by number puts them in date order?

    Oh, right, it’s because both mdy and dmy are both purely convention, and the only reason anyone cares about the difference it that it’s America that does it mdy.

  43. I like to think that it’s because it goes in order of maximum values, smallest to biggest. There is a maximum of 12 months, a maximum of 31 days, and an infinite number of years.

    Just continuously counts up and rolls over to the next one, and then resets.

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