Why do Americans do the date differently?

[Hamster at Dawn]

I've thought about this, and I the best answer I came up with is that it's more natural in speech to state the month before the day. For example August twelfth, nineteen ninety eight, as opposed to the twelfth of August, nineteen ninety eight. In that sense I agree with our habit of listing months before days, since in general conversation most people will say the month before the day. It's just a preference, but I think it sounds better in casual speech to say (month) (day) than to say the (day) of (month).

I have thought this but I think the cause and effect here are the wrong way around. In the UK it is more common to say "12th of august" whereas in the US it is usually said "August 12th". I don't know and I haven't got a better explanation to be honest so you may be right.

 

[Jewrean]

Read the bold. As in, "for this logical argument, it may be better to think of dates this way" not as in, "this is the best way to think of dates period." Nice try.

Regardless; you still expressed a preference whether it be a test in this experiment alone, based on logic, or any reason you care to name.

Which I didn't. And which also means that you largely ignored the point of my post once again. Awesome.

Not really. Just pointing out your contradiction.

Oh, but I thought I was the average American, who loves my M/D/Y so much?

When did I say you were American? I said you showed bias towards M/D/Y. You explained based on logic why M/D/Y was better. Normally this would be fine but you didn't put up any counter points for D/M/Y. Only explaining the Pros of one system doesn't seem like you feel it's impossible to tell which system is better.

Depends. Is the appointment in the same month? Expanding on that, is it more likely that all appointments in their lives that they need to check will be made within the same month, or outside it? I don't know of studies about this, and such can't rule out the possibility that it could be more advantageous to put the month first, depending on the statistics.

We don't need studies for this. It's quite simple. When anyone on the street asks you for the date they are asking for the day primarily the vast majority of the time. In this example you are arguing for the sake of disagreement. Yes there are individuals who require Month, or even Year first for particular examples but you would have to be crazy to actually think those two things take priority to the average person asking for the date.

It's usually not a good idea to make blanket statements like this. Unless you have a study you can quote?

If the claim I was making was something like '44% of all people believe in Ghosts' or 'Justin Bieber has over 100 million fans worldwide' then I would DEFINITELY need to back it up with actual proof.

This case would be similar to me saying 'the vast majority of people wear clothing' and then you saying 'Do you have a study you can quote?'.

Then I guess we've made progress.

I don't like your tone. I'm not replying again. You can say you've won the internet conversation (which is like saying you've won the 'hit your head against a brick wall longer competition'). Agree to disagree... and yada yada.

 

[skitzo van]

Why the hell has this thread gotten so popular? We do the date differently we cause we're a different society. It really pains me to say this but I think I'm right and this stupid topic has just gotten way out of hand.

 

[Tilted_Logic]

Everyone should just adopt isodate (YYYY-MM-DD).

I could see potential in that, but the problem comes with most people shortening the year to just '09 or '10 etc. And removing the pre-digits completely.


And to the OP: I've often wondered that myself. Being Canadian I use day, month, year, but as it stands I'm constantly exposed to American... well, American everything. And I find it nigh impossible to discern when something they're referring to happened on the 6th of May or the 5th of June.

Honestly it makes things so difficult sometimes. Take for example the news; many places on the internet post their articles with a short 00/00/00 type date, so I haven't a clue whether or not that flood happened yesterday or months ago.

Oh America, how you confuse me...

 

[Kurokami]

Can some American escapists tell me why you guys do the date like this : month/day/year
instead of in order like this: day/month/year?
(I would have just google'd this but its better to get a wider range of answers and I wouldn't know how to phrase the question)

They left England for a reason, perhaps it was due to spite or an attempt to separate themselves from their past oppressors and yada yada.

That wasn't the question but I think it was too find new lands of wealth and build a brighter future for themselves. Which I guess you can say worked since you're now a superpower.

Judging by the comment I assume he's not american. Nor am I.

 

[jowo96]

One of the benefits of Independence from the British Empire? Like calling Trousers Pants.

NB:Ingenuine statement

 

[Rockchimp69]

Can some American escapists tell me why you guys do the date like this : month/day/year
instead of in order like this: day/month/year?
(I would have just google'd this but its better to get a wider range of answers and I wouldn't know how to phrase the question)

They left England for a reason, perhaps it was due to spite or an attempt to separate themselves from their past oppressors and yada yada.

That wasn't the question but I think it was too find new lands of wealth and build a brighter future for themselves. Which I guess you can say worked since you're now a superpower.

Judging by the comment I assume he's not american. Nor am I.

How do you figure?

 

[Aerialfrogg]

Fourth of January - 4 Jan
January Fourth - Jan 4

Look we got rid of that nasty "of "! Month then date is the way that most people say it in the U.S. What can I say, we like to shorten things in any possible way. I don't know if it goes this far back, but in general during and soon after the revolutionary war we wanted to distance ourselves from the British way of doing things. I'm pretty sure this is even when we did the switcharoo with coffee for tea. We were like an ornery little brother who just hates oatmeal because their big brother likes it.

 

[Kurokami]

Can some American escapists tell me why you guys do the date like this : month/day/year
instead of in order like this: day/month/year?
(I would have just google'd this but its better to get a wider range of answers and I wouldn't know how to phrase the question)

They left England for a reason, perhaps it was due to spite or an attempt to separate themselves from their past oppressors and yada yada.

That wasn't the question but I think it was too find new lands of wealth and build a brighter future for themselves. Which I guess you can say worked since you're now a superpower.

Judging by the comment I assume he's not american. Nor am I.

How do you figure?

Can some American escapists tell me why you guys do the date like this : month/day/year
instead of in order like this: day/month/year?
(I would have just google'd this but its better to get a wider range of answers and I wouldn't know how to phrase the question)

To me that's saying "Please tell me Americans, because I'm not American."

That and his profile says he's from the UK.

Edit: Hold up, f**k am I talking about it's you. Sorry, didn't notice avatar and it took a profile look to see.

 

[minuialear]

Regardless; you still expressed a preference whether it be a test in this experiment alone, based on logic, or any reason you care to name.

Expressing a preference would have required me qualifying what form of logic would be best/make more sense in determining what representation of dates makes more sense. I did no such thing (I mentioned that I thought that months can provide contain more sentimental information than a day, but didn't say that sentimental information ultimately ought to be the method one uses to write a date, or that factoring in the length of time for each part is more/less important than sentimental value, etc). I don't know how else to explain this.

When did I say you were American? I said you showed bias towards M/D/Y. You explained based on logic why M/D/Y was better.

Se above.

It's quite simple. When anyone on the street asks you for the date they are asking for the day primarily the vast majority of the time. In this example you are arguing for the sake of disagreement.

Perhaps this is what you experience on a daily basis, but it is not necessarily consistent with everyone else. That is my point; I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing, but pointing out that anecdotal evidence isn't real evidence, because my anecdotal evidence could (and in this case, does) contradict yours, and since my experience isn't more correct than yours (or vice-versa), we end up at a standstill. Therefore empirical data is the only way to get anywhere.

I don't like your tone. I'm not replying again. You can say you've won the internet conversation (which is like saying you've won the 'hit your head against a brick wall longer competition'). Agree to disagree... and yada yada.

Again, you've missed the point. I didn't disagree with you about your choice to represent a date one way, or with your decision that the representation makes sense; I disagreed with you because you (on multiple occasions, one of which I quoted for you) chose to make blanket statements about how your form of logic was best and how "any other" argument was not as logical/didn't make any sense. You were entitled to having an opinion, but not to saying it was better than other people's opinions just because you thought it was better.

But whatever. I guess I "win," then.

 

[manaman]

It's funny how often people call for tolerance and acceptance until it's something the US does differently then Europe.

Yeah. It's all talk for most. Acceptance, blah. Most people only know how to be accepting of the things they have been told to be accepting about.

For the huge crowd of "like the rest of us" in this thread. Combined China and India outnumber "the rest of us" and Both of them use yyyy/mm/dd (India uses dd/mm/yyyy format in some respects but predominately uses yyyy/mm/dd).

 

[Virgil]

Can some American escapists tell me why you guys do the date like this : month/day/year

The simple answer is because that's the way we were taught to do it. The same reason everyone does things that way.

As for the reasoning behind it, I would guess it has to do with typical use. When you deal with any treed number system, which is what a date is, it usually makes more sense to go from least-specific to most-specific. For example, distances are measured in feet, then inches (or meters, then centimeters for you metrics). Time is measured in hours, then minutes, then seconds. The most general number comes first because it provides more contextual information than the later numbers (hence, rounding).

Here's where the context matters. A date usually means more than a number in conversation. It's a plan - like, say, for a vacation. When you're talking about a vacation, the date also represents traffic, the weather, school schedules, and a whole bunch of other info. If you only had either the month or the day, but not both, which bit of info gives more contextual information? The month. So saying the month first in most conversational uses makes a lot of sense, since the exact date only makes a difference in more limited situations (like, say, a holiday). As soon as you hear "August..." you're thinking about heat and summer vacations, even before you hear the "... 15th".

Logically, Y/M/D actually makes the most sense. In fact, that also makes the most sense when you're storing dates digitally, since it makes searching and sorting very easy. 20110104 < 20100105 for example. But in conversational use, the year is usually not important, and is dropped. It's just assumed that the year is either irrelevant, the current year, or next year (for dated in the future). That's why it's tacked onto the end in both use cases.

Of course, we're talking about very minor differences in actual use, and it's an issue that was 'decided' long before the internet made it into a giant pain in the ass.

My solution here was to just go with the universally recognized standard of "Day# MonthName Year#" for as many places on the site that I could, and to store our dates in GMT and localize them to your computer's time zone setting

 

[iBananaCrazy]

My answer to mostly "Why do" questions:

Because we/I can.

 

[Mcupobob]

Why do you other counties obsess about it? I don't start bitching that you drive on the left side of the road, which makes no sense!

Any who I like our system it just sound right despite it being weird, maybe because I grew up with it.

 

[NotAPie]

It doesn't bother me but thats because I'm 'merican.

 

[steph01a]

We use the month first because in the early days of our country the "mountain men" would spend months in the wilderness not knowing what day it was. Most days look like every other day. So, when these folks popped out of their mountain cabins in the spring the first question was -

"what time is it?"

The answer was then (and still is) "well, snow's melting .. must be dam near June!!"

So, America adopted the mm/dd/yyyy format for dates because it's always more important to know what month it is rather than the day of the month.

I also have some ocean front property over in Arizona that would make a nice place for someone ... *grin*

 

[Zechnophobe]

Can some American escapists tell me why you guys do the date like this : month/day/year
instead of in order like this: day/month/year?
(I would have just google'd this but its better to get a wider range of answers and I wouldn't know how to phrase the question)

When you say the date, what order do you say it in? I say "May fourth, nineteen eighty-two". So It makes sense to put the numbers that way.

If you say "The Fifth of November, sixteen hundred and four" it makes sense to write it that way.

So yeah, just cultural.

 

[Scde2]

I've been using the American dating system my whole life.
But day/month/year just seems more natural to me for some reason.

 

[Gahars]

Force of habit, I suppose.