Why do Americans do the date differently?

[Mcface]

i do day/month/year and im american

 

[loc978]

Honestly, I couldn't say. It's a ridiculous convention.
That said, I've been using the US Military dating system so long (for example, today is 20110102), I forget how the American standard goes most of the time.

 

[Mcface]

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.

Actually, its done because it makes more sense when you say it out.
say it out loud.

Month/Day/Year
June, 6, 1944

as opposed to
6, June, 1944

 

[Karma168]

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

because its safer, apparently the human brain will make you swing left when heading for collisions. (think about that weird dance you do when you walk into someone, it almost always starts by going left) so when you swerve in Britain you end up in a ditch, in the US you end up under an 18 wheeler.

OT: no idea why the US has it the other way round but it is incredibly annoying when watching a trailer for a game/film and the release date is given as 05/09/11. now I have no idea if the date is day first or month so have no idea when the thing is even coming out.

 

[Kuhkren]

Not a clue, although it makes things more interesting. Now why don't we use the metric system on the other hand.....

 

[Dr_Steve_Brule]

It's kind of like this-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu_illAgCPg
Oh and by the way, if you know how to embed youtube videos on the escapist, please tell me.

 

[Jewrean]

"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.

That's what I was referring to.

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).

But this goes against your previous information. You were arguing that there is no clear victor logically (which for the most part I agree with) and now you are shifting bias to what you are used to. The 'part of the year' thing goes back to your previous post as well hindering it useless information seeming as it depends on ones own personal perception of logic.

To put it simply; day / month / year:

Short amount of time / Medium amount of time / Long amount of time

Makes more sense logically. Any and ALL other arguments are personal opinion or bias except for the one I raised before about ordering the dates on a computer or in a filing cabinet.

 

[BrionJames]

I guess because it's always been written out that way. January, 21, 1847 - September, Twenty-First, 1892 - 05/12/2011. It just seems natural to us.

 

[WorldCritic]

Americans like to be different I guess. Personally I tend to switch back and forth depending on what I need the date for so I guess by American standards I'm weird.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's a Phonetic Classification vs a Nominal Classification

If I read 1/2/11, I can easily and phonetically speak it as "January 2nd 2011", which is how it is spoken here (the month is more important because a day is ambiguous; it can only be a number. If we moved away to just calling the months by number, rather than by name this argument would make more sense. But not even the Europeans do that).

For casual reading, or daily reports it's just more convenient, especially if it's in the middle of a sentence (since Americans so deranged/stupid that they still read left to right...oh wait).

Of course, Nominal Classifications are better for long-term record keeping, because it's easier to read them in a list (important for directory listings).
2/1/11
2/3/11
2/17/11
3/2/11

So if anyone is just using this as another excuse to call Americans stupid/insane/lazy, there actually are practical reasons to use either ordering. Don't worry, I'm sure irrational hatred will win the day though.

 

[CoziestPigeon]

Same reason they still use the imperial system. Americans HATE change.

 

[Rockchimp69]

Is there any way to lock your own threads?

 

[Lucane]

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

I thought it was becuase it's better for Filing instead of 1,Jan;1,Feb;1,March... 1,Dec;2,Jan etc. but your way seems to make better since.

 

[MikeOfThunder]

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).

But in Britain for example, we write AND say day/month/year. For us it's more natural to say it how we do. Its just a little thing that makes our nations that bit different, despite our massive similarities.

I think it's possibly because months are more important? Whenever i write an essay (i do history, so im working with dates alot) i usually just refer to the month and year. Unless it's crucial or important.

 

[AsianMafiaSin]

The same reason we use the AMERCIAN measuring system instead of metric, because a trusted figure of authority told us to and we continue to do so in our faith in them.
TLDR; Because that's how we were first taught.

 

[L3viath]

I actually think we should move the way of china and japan (and they arent being asshats about it either). Whenever I've seen a chinese or japanese date they alwayse have avoided confusion by putting the full year first (yyyy/mm/dd) so when you see that you immediately know how its meant to be read. With the american system you would have to write the date to avoid confusion (may/4/2011).

 

[minuialear]

You were arguing that there is no clear victor logically (which for the most part I agree with) and now you are shifting bias to what you are used to.

You don't know my preference for writing dates, so please refrain from making assumptions about what I'm "used to." The fact that you perceived some sort of bias towards how I write a date and tried to say it invalidates my argument is evidence that you didn't get my argument, which is you can argue that any way of writing the date is better or "more logical," and can come up with pros and cons of each of these methods. Whatever you choose as the "most logical" will simply depend on the logic you choose.

I never chose a logic (feel free to quote the contrary); I came up with multiple types of logic one may use to determine how to write a date, and offered arguments for some of them. You take that as evidence that betrays my loyalties and invalidates anything I said? For shame.

Also, you seemed to fall for the bias trap, again, in this very response (emphasis mine):

The 'part of the year' thing goes back to your previous post as well hindering it useless information seeming as it depends on ones own personal perception of logic.

To put it simply; day / month / year:

Short amount of time / Medium amount of time / Long amount of time

Makes more sense logically. Any and ALL other arguments are personal opinion or bias except for the one I raised before about ordering the dates on a computer or in a filing cabinet.

Ignoring the fact that you ironically dismiss my argument due to imagined biases hindering my ability to give useful information and then proceed to argue that one way is the "most" logical (not just logical, but more logical than anything else), your definition of "most logical" is more logical because...why?

Why is it "more logical" to organize the parts of the day by how much time they take up (in ascending order)? What logical advantage is there to that, which exceeds any logical advantage to any other method/logic of writing the date? Why not start with the largest amount of time and go down? Why not arrange the elements by the amount of information they yield about the time frame the event took place in? Why aren't these as logical?

Any of these ways can be the most logical, depending on what you think is logical, depending on what you think the function of a date is, and depending on some other philosophical talk we don't need to get into. Point being, one may think it's more logical to go small->big because a date is just a sequence of numbers, and like numbers they ought to go smallest to biggest. Someone else may think it's more logical to go big->small because the bigger number gives the greatest scope of how much time has elapsed (similar to the way we deal with time; hours:minutes:seconds:etc). Someone else may think it's more logical to arrange the parts of the date based on the importance of the parts themselves in relaying information about the date (ex., some may think putting the day first is more logical because the day gives the exact date at which the event occurred; some may think putting the month first is more logical because it allows the person to determine what part of the year the event occurred in, which could be important for things like weather tracking, farming, etc). I could go on. There is a logic to EACH of these, and EACH has its merits, so how do you choose which logic is "most" logical? Other than through bias? And knowing that bias is a factor in determining the "most" logical, does it therefore make any sense to try and argue that any one method is actually more logical than the rest?

 

[vxicepickxv]

Well, we could always go with another calendar, where today's date is 11002. Yes it is a real calendar. New years eve last year was 10365. New years eve next year will be 12366.