Why do Americans do the date differently?

[Irridium]

I don't know, why do people in England drive on the wrong side of the road?

Why does the water in toilets in the Southern Hemisphere flush the wrong way?

 

[Glerken]

I swear to god if I hear one more person in this thread try to sound funny by personifying America as an "Angsty Teenager" trying to rebel, I'm going to scream.

You see, America has different dialect than England, and we say the date as January 1st, 2011.
So it's MM/DD/YY. While you may say the 1st of January, 2011. So you use DD/MM/YY.

Neither is superior. It's a really minor issue.

And no, we Americans did not change how we say the date to be different, angsty teenagers. Over time languages evolve and dialect changes. America and England have the Atlantic Ocean separating them, for this reason, while we do both speak English, there are small differences in them.

Now be quiet, you people generalizing America are just as bad as the ultra-patriotic rednecks. And you self-hating American's annoy me to no end. Yes, it's stupid to be proud of what chunk of land you happened to be born on, but it's equally as stupid to be ashamed of it.

 

[Carlston]

I dunno. Why do the people doing it the other way do it that way?

Thats how it's said over here- today is "the second of January two thousand and eleven."

I'm in Scotland. It's part of the UK. The UK is the nation that some ignorant people call "England". Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England are in fact culturally diverse places, and quite often people from one of those places don't like it when you just refer to them as "English" or say "England did" stufff that actually the UK did.)

Last I checked (shoo Sealand) every country past and present wants everyone to see everything their way, and anyone who says they aren't is living in a dream world to make themselves seem more enlightened.

I call bollocks on this statement. I don't believe that any culture is any better than any other. I am well aware that the parts of my culture that I love dearly were the result of many cultures all influencing each other- not people forcing each other to see things their way, but people recognising that they didn't and not having it bother them. This "dream world" to which you refer happens- get your eyes away from the crap parts of the world for a few minutes and you'll see it as well.

You're just mad because England couldn't hold on to it's colonies. Next time bring more soldiers.

I think you meant "UK" not "England", which also explains why you don't know that the next time we brought less soldiers. It went quite well to. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington)

No one cares if you think any culture is better than any others, if you really thought so you wouldn't bash on the Americans now would ya ;p seriously everyone is gonna worry about their own back yard and it's just how life is.
And you just proved my point even more.

 

[FallenJellyDoughnut]

They enjoy making things feel like their own. They do it with language too. Make minor changes so they can feel like they're not just copying a country most of them see as their own personal ***** nation.

This.
America is like that angsty teenager who acts all different because it makes him feel rebel or something.

Just like Australia is that video-game hating place where everyone rides Kangaroos. Right? Because saying something about a country based on one thing is cool.

OT: Honestly, probably because day goes up 31, while month only goes up to 12, so they try to make the smaller numbers first for some reason.

Well obviously we ride kangaroos. How else would we get around?

 

[Xojins]

I don't know, why do people in England drive on the wrong side of the road?

Why does the water in toilets in the Southern Hemisphere flush the wrong way?

It doesn't actually; that's a common myth.

 

[Dindril]

... I never knew it was a country specific thing... Seeing as I write DD-MM-YY, while I frequently see MM-DD-YY, and my computer has it YYYY-MM-DD...

Note: I'm american...

 

[BabyRaptor]

America likes to be the one kid standing in the spotlight. We do it on lots of stuff: Israel, dates, measurement systems, our huge lack of sanity...

Really, I have no idea.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

So there. Have your "Go America!" picture, have your date system. I'll have my date system, and I'll just make jokes about England just being mad that they lost all their colonies. Compromise?

not really sure what england has to do with any of this since its like most of the world uses dd/mm/yyyy and if they dont use it then they use yyyy/mm/dd.

its like 6 countries including the US that use mm/dd/yyyy


also i havent seen america have an empire that spand the globe, the sun never set on the british empire and all that. so maybe hold off on the britsh losing the empire jokes until the US actually has an empire to lose.

Sorry, though you were English, so I was just putting in a little jab.

Imperialism isn't a good thing, you know. We had a bit of one for a while, but we cut it off after a while.

England had a head start, regardless.

 

[USSR]

When they say a date out loud they also happen to say it like that e.g. May 24th, instead of 24th of May

That's actually just a personal preference of the speaker..
Or it is around here, at least.

I don't know if someone quoted you on that already, but I don't feel like going through nine pages..

 

[Nimcha]

It's quite confusing sometimes on the internet when you have dates like 05-03-2011 or something. Usually I then have to check other dates on the site to deduce which system they use. :/

If everyone would just use the metric system, Kelvin for temperature and DD/MM/YYYY for dates the world would be a much better place.

 

[BioHazardMan]

God I knew this would turn into "because America thinks they're better than everyone else". Assholes.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

Does it really matter?

YES! This is the answer right here!

 

[Caligulove]

I always thought it was because the Month helped indicate the season, and among other things, determine quick recognition of 'when' this document or whatever is timestamped, took place.

It might make sense to write the date in increasing values of time, but I know I find organizing things easier when I'm looking at many items from within the same year and need to organize them chronologically, by simply looking at the month. Then again, you've also probably noticed we tend to do things differently/our way just because we can.

 

[Steam Colossus]

Smallest variety in measurement first, I guess. Only 12 months, but up to 31 days and at least 2011 years

Yeah probably smallest to greatest potential number.

 

[Woodsey]

Because Fox News told them day/month/year was a liberal conspiracy.

 

[minuialear]

They enjoy making things feel like their own. They do it with language too. Make minor changes so they can feel like they're not just copying a country most of them see as their own personal ***** nation.

1+

Although it more applies to when the nation was being formed as to differentiate themselves from their British overlords.

I will admit that ordering by M/D/Y actually puts it in order when you order your computer files by name. It's still far more logical to do D/M/Y though.

"Logical" in this sense is subjective. If you mean more logical as in "it goes in order based on length of time unit," then sure.

If you mean more logical as in "it goes in order based on how large the value can become [for example, months go 1-12]," then no.

If you mean more logical as in "the day is more important than the month and therefore should go first," then that's a subjective qualification of the importance of a specific day in time vs a month in time. Different cultures may put different weight on the importance, and neither way is more "right" than the other, because in the end the same information is transmitted, is it not?

If you mean more logical as in "putting the day first gives someone an immediate frame of reference, even before seeing the rest of the date," then that is also a subjective qualification on what part of the date best gives someone a frame of reference for the time. Though for this one I'd argue it doesn't, and therefore that it could often be more advantageous to have the month first (because at least the month can reference what part of the year the event occurred in).

 

[DCMan]

It is just another way to keep track of things. There are different measurements for everything, money, distance, weight, amount of things you have.

 

[alandavidson]

It was primarily done to seperate the new country of America from its mother country, Britain. However, you can always tell a current/former of the American military because they write the date as such:

2JAN2011

or

2JAN11