Why do Americans do the date differently?

[mr_rubino]

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.

Pretty much this and they wanted to make themselves seem different from the other colonies

You may need to learn your own history. You used to spell words the right way, but changed your mind to impress the mainlanders. We Americans merely continued to spell things correctly.
Speaking of butchering the England language, why don't the chavs talk like the kids did in Romeo and Juliet anymore? =(

 

[Singularly Datarific]

Sweet.
I dunno why we do that. I know that in my spanish class, they make me go day/month/year, but that's all. I think it has to do with how we say it, i.e. December 12th, 2049, whereas in Spanish, the syntax goes as if it were The 12th of December, 2049.

 

[quantumsoul]

It's because of these guys.

 

[Magnatek]

Oh, look! People are generalizing. Yet again. You asked a trick question. Why do Americans do this? Not all do. Hell, even THE US MILITARY uses day/month/year on their documents.

For those that can't make this make sense, which absolutely baffles me as to why it doesn't, here's how I see it. The numbers are placed left to right from lowest possible number to highest possible number. In this instance, the highest number months go is 12, so that's on the far left. The highest number days go is 31, so that's in the middle. As for years, that's always going to be the highest number, so that sticks to the right.

 

[K4ndY]

You have no idea how much these two systems have been messing with my head... Being bilingual in Canada, this basically means that if I want to refer to the first of Febuary 2011, in English I would need to write 02.01.2011, but if I was to write in French, then it would become 01.02.2011. I aways mess up the dates, it's horrible...

 

[kebab4you]

In Sweden we do Year/Month/Date

We think it makes far more sense that way...

Since when did we do that?

In fact if I write that on any papers on mine I will get it back since the date/month/year is wrongly given. Ah but then again my birth date is given in year month day so it make sense, sorry ._.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I really have no idea why it's done. But I hate it, because I got the release date for Uncharted 3 totally wrong because of it.... stupid MM/DD/YYYY system... making me think it was the 11th of January!

 

[Irridium]

Because we feel like it.

Does it really matter?

As a person from "rest of the world" trying to apply to American Colleges: Yes, it does matter.
In fact it's ANNOYING! America (not you or any other specific american) needs to grow up and stop trying to be different from my fair land of "everywhere else on the planet" in pathetic ways.

I'm sorry if this comment seems derogatory and troll-ish..... but it really is pretty damn Annoying to have to print stuff twice just cause you "got the date wrong".

I have a theory:

Spoiler: Problem, world?

 

[moretimethansense]

Near as I can tell it's down to how they say it.

We in the UK: Third of January

Backwards ass yanks: January the third

When and why did they start putting it that way?

Fuck if I know.

 

[Wolfenbarg]

It depends on the application like anything else. When I interned with a pharmaceutical company, we always did day/month/year. The military does this as well. In the end it develops less confusion since both of those entities are bound to be working internationally. It's something that's stuck with me, as I always write the date like this: 01 Jan 2011 whenever I'm putting it down. No confusion possible. I can't say why we do it the other way, people just made an arbitrary decision and it stuck I guess.

 

[Lord Doomhammer]

If gen-ed history was worth anything at all, it was setup by a western railway company to save type space on shipping manifests, the system was standardized along the railway system and eventually became too ingrained into the way american business works to ever stop.

That was the last explanation i heard.

 

[Lilani]

We just do. And to send it right back at ya, why do all of you Europeans and Asians drive on the left side of the road, huh? That's so silly.

 

[moose_man]

I do it y/m/d, so suck on THAT!

MOOSE_MAAAAAN!!! *shakes fist*

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[MagicMouse]

The date is January 1st, 2011.

The date is 01/1/2011.

It is written the way it is spoken.

 

[Contun]

Tomorrow is January 2nd, 2011; we Americans would write it as 1/2/11.

Exactly how you would say it. There's nothing odd about it.

 

[88chaz88]

The date is January 1st, 2011.

The date is 01/1/2011.

It is written the way it is spoken.

No, the date is the 1st of January, 2011. This whole "it's the way it's spoken" argument holds no water for me, as I've never even heard Americans state the month first.

 

[Brian Hendershot]

Probably the same reason we do everything else different. We want to be different from everyone else and make math really hard because we can't use the metric system! Sorry, I digress.

 

[Spark Ignition]

oh americans do it differently? And here was me wondering what happened on the 9th of November...

 

[maeson]

be lucky you're not using the NATO system. Day, time, month, year. ex: for me, right now is 011905JAN11. 01(day)1905(clock time)JAN(month)11(year)

 

[Veldel]

Personal prefrence id suppose and how its taught