Why do Americans do the date differently?

[Azure Sky]

What I want to know is why they can't htfu and convert to using the metric system already!

.>

 

[Skratt]

I suspect its a cultural conversational thing that has somehow translated onto paper. In conversation you would say, "when is your birthday?" to which the other would reply "November 5th". Unless you are talking about historical events, then just tack the year onto the end (11/5/1900). I suspect that is the same way when people speak the date as: "the 5th of November", so the date is again tacked onto the end (5/11/1900).

Both are wrong in written form as the date should always follow the standard that allows things to be sorted properly: year.month.day.

 

[zhoominator]

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 wonder if this in itself is an "americanism" too. I never hear anybody say, for example, "January third" in conversation. Where I live in the UK people would say it's "the third of January", because the other way just seems backwards to me and the people around me. It's be like saying "nine ten" in casual conversation where most people say "ten past nine". This way is actually more convenient and consistent in conversation since when somebody asks the date, I could just say "the third" and saying "of January" is merely a logical, but not always necessary expansion. But nevertheless, it probably does help explain the difference.

If, however, we're talking use of dates for organising, both forms are ineffective (but slightly moreso the American method). In terns of this, the best way would in fact be year/month/day. Imagine instead of 11:30.32 (24-hour time), they wrote it 32:30:11 or, by stateside logic, it'd be 30.32:11. These ways look stupid because they are, and the same could be said of our dating system. I'm sure there'll be somewhere that adopts this method though.

 

[lukey94]

Because any other arrangement would make pi day impossible?

give this man the nobel prize (NO SARCASM)

It's really just because they want to rebel, like they spell colour *color* laser *lazer* (i've seen some use the z but i don't think they officially use that), trousers *pants* rubbish *trash/garbage*. Also some people say that they do things differently to defy Europe (France) ..... yet they use the cent (french for 100)

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

It's never made sense to me to go day/month/year.

When we speak the date, we say "January 3rd, 2011", so it only makes sense to shorten it to 1/3/11. We don't say "The 3rd of Janurary, 2011".

Do other people say it the latter?

 

[Rhymenoceros]

Just like the Romans did... They copied everything, including their gods, from other civilisations.

They actually rarely copied the Gods. They would adapt their religion a little bit to make it less intrusive for the newly conquered so they would be less likely to revolt

 

[Caverat]

I prefer the military standard 03JAN11

It's perfect, just writing the month removes confusion as to what manner you are used to, and it is only adding an extra digit in the date as all months have a 3 letter abbreviation. But that is what I am used to, and that really is the only significance to the way people write the date, what they are used to. Getting worked up about it just makes you a jackass.

As to what is 'logical', well, when people bring up logic with something so trivial, its basically their way of saying " I'm insecure if I don't appear correct, so here is a buzzword." Either that, or they are just making a reference to that South Park episode where Cartman ended up far in the future with many groups of Atheists that were waging war over what an organization of Atheists should call itself, each group using 'logic' as an excuse as to why the name they prefered was correct.

Just like the Romans did... They copied everything, including their gods, from other civilisations.

They actually rarely copied the Gods. They would adapt their religion a little bit to make it less intrusive for the newly conquered so they would be less likely to revolt

Check your history, the Roman religion was a carbon copy of the Greek except for the name changes. Heracles was changed to Hercules, and so forth.

 

[Sandernista]

Why doesn't everyone do it logically?!

Year/Month/Day makes the most sense for filing!

 

[Sandernista]

My guess is it probably goes back to when the US was first forming. They decided they wanted to be different than England, so they adopted a lot of different things like driving opposite side of the road, not using the metric system, etc.

We took the British measurement system.

And also, only those silly Englishmen drive on the left side of the road.

 

[Lyx]

Everyone should just adopt isodate (YYYY-MM-DD). Why?
- the four-digit year allows to clearly distinguish it from the other two
- will correctly sort automatically
- it's a third option, so the other two do not need to fight over "who has to agree with whom".
- verbal preferences can stay unchanged - if i say "1st of January" or "January the 1st", it's understandable anyways

 

[fordneagles]

If someone asks me the date, I would say 'the first' (or whatever) because people already know what month it is. If they were referring to another time, past or future, I would say 'the first of Janurary, 2011'. Seems to flow better that way to me.

I think Americans think it's too hard to change to come in line with the rest of the world, and that the rest of the world should have to understand and convert between the differences, because that's 'easier' (because inconveniencing 300 million people is far worse than inconveniencing the other 6 billion)

P.S: I'm allowed to think that. You're allowed to think I'm wrong if you like.

 

[minuialear]

I do know your preference for the way you write dates because you already made it clear which one was more "advantageous" than the other. Are we ignoring that you said that now?

...
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).

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.

I admit to being bias myself. I prefer D/M/Y. I also explained the logic behind it. I was pointing out that you showed bias at the same time as appearing as a neutral party. If you were truly neutral (ie: thought that there couldn't possibly be a clear winner and neither trumps the other) then you wouldn't explain a preference.

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

Logic:
-A method of human thought that involves thinking in a linear, step-by-step manner about how a problem can be solved.
-logical - coherent: marked by an orderly, logical, and aesthetically consistent relation of parts; "a coherent argument"

I'm going to stop you right here, because the rest of your argument seems to misunderstand this definition. It's not saying that it's illogical to not put the parts in order based on length of time; it's simply saying that something that is logical is done in a way that is consistent with some order or aesthetics. The definition doesn't state that order itself has to be based on size, therefore it could be based on anything, so long as that something has a rationale to it. By this definition, it'd be logical to arrange the parts based on how large the numbers get (i.e., doing M/D/Y just because there are 12 months, 28-31 days, and thousands of years) because it's an "aesthetically consistent relation of parts." Try again.

Each need that you explained is a worthwhile reason to express the date a certain way. But for a moment put yourself in the average Americans shoes for a second.

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

If they needed to check what the date was for their dental appointment then they probably wouldn't care about the month first would they?

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.

The vast majority of people requiring knowledge of the current date would need it for the DAY before any other piece of pertinent information.

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

I'M just saying that to me, D/M/Y is more logical.

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.

Then I guess we've made progress.

 

[Rofl-Mayo]

Canada does this too, or maybe it's just me...

 

[Agent Cross]

My thinking was that if you were using a calendar, you would flip to the month first, and then locate the day. Of course, that would assume the year is a given. MM/DD/YY

 

[Wicky_42]

Ideally we should all adopt the iso standard YYYY/MM/DD as it makes it easier to parse dates as you don't need to know the user's locale.

Yeah, just started doing that for my uni work and was shocked to see how much sense it makes! I've been doing it backwards all my life, lol.

 

[tthor]

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)

Because they say it and learn it that way?

That's not the reason why the whole of the USA does it like that, that is why individual people do.

and what, the whole of the USA is just 1 big mutated blob of millions of humans fused together?
countrys are made up of millions of individuals. this is something people tend to forget when they look at groups of people, that these groups are not just single entities, but many individuals, each of which with different and unique ideas and opinions.

 

[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)

Because they say it and learn it that way?

That's not the reason why the whole of the USA does it like that, that is why individual people do.

and what, the whole of the USA is just 1 big mutated blob of millions of humans fused together?
countrys are made up of millions of individuals. this is something people tend to forget when they look at groups of people, that these groups are not just single entities, but many individuals, each of which with different and unique ideas and opinions.

I haven't forgotten the definition of a group thank you.
What I mean was that, that is the not the original reason for doing the date differently. That's just stating that american people get taught it like that.

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

Thats not how we do it.
This is it

/in whatever order we feel like

 

[bushwhacker2k]

Because of the way it is said in conversation: "December 25th, 1928"

At least that's the only reason I can see, and it makes sense to me.