American Date Format

[patrickgeekhack]

Why is the American (and of course little brother Canada) date format Month/Day/Year instead of Day/Month/Year? Although it does not make sense to me, I know there must have been a reason behind this choice. I just don't know what it is.

[Fwiffo]

Both are inferior to year-month-day, which is lexicographically sortable, and has the good sense to put the most significant parts to the left like we do with numbers, times and everything else.

[woody]

But M/D/Y just defies any sense of hierarchy.

[patrickgeekhack]

But M/D/Y just defies any sense of hierarchy.

This is why I have never understood this format. It's not from smallest to biggest nor from biggest to smallest. The worse is in Canada, they cannot seem to decide what they want to do. Some places use one format whereas others use the other format. And this can be very problematic.

I bought my GPS sometimes in November 2007. I had to send it back for repairs before the end of the one year warranty (TomTom US). They told me that the warranty expired because it was bought in March. Thankfully, there was a refund for the unit because the price dropped during the first 14 days.

[Fwiffo]

It matches the way you'd say the date, e.g. "January 5th, 2009", but I agree, it doesn't make sense.

[patrickgeekhack]

It matches the way you'd say the date, e.g. "January 5th, 2009", but I agree, it doesn't make sense.

I knew there must have been a reason. I guess this is how the date is said in North America. I always said "5th of January 2010" before coming to Canada.

[microsoft windows]

Why doesn't it make sense? If you're talking about the date, you can say March 4th for example. Or the Fourth of March. Since many times, people don't say the year when they say the date, the year's sort of an addition when needed.

Think about. March 4, 2010 versus The Fourth of March, 2010. They're basically the same thing. I've seen both and never found it to be that big of a deal.

You all got to realize that language wasn't invented just by a bunch of scientists. The origins of many aspects of language from slang to date formats just originated out of the way people said them, logical or not.

[patrickgeekhack]

Why doesn't it make sense? If you're talking about the date, you can say March 4th for example. Or the Fourth of March. Since many times, people don't say the year when they say the date, the year's sort of an addition when needed.

Think about. March 4, 2010 versus The Fourth of March, 2010. They're basically the same thing. I've seen both and never found it to be that big of a deal.

How people say is not what does not make sense to me. It's when it's written, because we do include the year 99% of the time when we write down a date.

You all got to realize that language wasn't invented just by a bunch of scientists. The origins of many aspects of language from slang to date formats just originated out of the way people said them, logical or not.

Good point.

[Fwiffo]

The worst part is that it can be ambiguous because both month/day and day/month are used by English speaking people in different places (is it April 3rd or March 4th?) Year-month-day is never ambiguous (as long as you use a four-digit year) because nobody anywhere would use year-day-month.

[Ekaros]

Yeah, English doesn't make sense in first place anyway.

I still prefer 1.2.2003 format

[didjamatic]

This makes sense and you can sort files easier.

YYYYMMDD
or
YYYY-MM-DD

[mr_a500]

Why is the American (and of course little brother Canada) date format Month/Day/Year instead of Day/Month/Year? Although it does not make sense to me, I know there must have been a reason behind this choice. I just don't know what it is.

The proper Canadian short date format is YYYY-MM-DD. I've used that since 1982. Unfortunately, since most computers in Canada were set up with stupid American defaults, most Canadians just kept the defaults. Most businesses in Canada are American owned now and use American standards. And of course, new immigrants coming to Canada see people using the American standards and assume that they're Canadian standards and follow them, increasing the number of people using them. (also the reason Canadian English is dying - I knew English people who came to Canada and started using American spellings because they thought that's the way it's spelled in Canada!)

Year should always be four digits! I hate looking at a "Best Before" date like 09|08|07 and wondering if it's Aug. 7 2009, Sept. 8, 2007 or (if European product) Aug. 9, 2007.

[Lanx]

d/m/y
makes sense if you look at a watch, a watch is standard worldwide
h/m/s
goes from largest to smallest
the date system should as well.

speaking of clocks we really should be on 24hr army time as well, makes more sense, and really the only drawback is cuz of the only 12hr analogue clock. Heck everything is digital now, when's the lastime you saw a rotary phone?
america should be on
metric
d/m/y
24hr army time

that would make the most sense, and we should still be the standard for currency tho, no one beats the good ol greenback, f those other nations who use dictators and queens on their slave money!

[Ekaros]

that would make the most sense, and we should still be the standard for currency tho, no one beats the good ol greenback, f those other nations who use dictators and queens on their slave money!

F those countries who write junk about god on their money...

Still USD isn't looking too bright right now, neither is euro... Maybe I should start investing in Yuans...

[db_Iodine]

Everything should be standardized the same way around the globe. I wouldn't mind if it was DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY or YYYY/MM/DD as long as it would be the same way around the globe. This will probably never happen but one can always hope.

[Fwiffo]

ISO 8601 *****es! If only people followed the standard...

[RoboKrikit]

I came here to say what Fwiffo said.

This also allows for easy asciibetical filename sorting for log files, camera files, etc.

[quadibloc]

Fractions build character.

It is true that it is a great convenience to have fractions available.

In response to it being noted that the metric unit of time is not one 100,000th of a day, but instead the second - which means that a day is still divided into 24 hours, each of which has 60 minutes, each of 60 seconds, in it - I proposed (largely in jest) that total metrication could be achieved, then, while retaining fractions by changing the inch from 2.54 centimeters to 2.52 centimeters.

Then, 1/3rd of an inch would be exactly 8.4 millimeters, and 1/9th of an inch would be exactly 2.8 millimeters. So 1/12th of an inch would be 2.1 millimeters... and even 1/7 of an inch would be exactly 3.6 millimeters!

[Fwiffo]

There's a very good reason why seconds are not a fraction of a day. The length of the day constantly changes, both cyclically over the course of the year due to the elliptical orbit of the Earth around the Sun, and slowing down over time due to (among other things), the tidal drag of the Moon and Sun.

The duration of periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom seems to be invariant, so it's reasonable to use 9,192,631,770 of those.

(*****es)

[Rajagra]

Haha - I fart inches from your  general direction to your ISO standards.

Fractions build character.

Americans even get that wrong. A half of a half is a quarter. Not a "fourth." :usa2:

Makes international hotel reservations sometimes confusing.

I always register as "Mr. Awesome".

Have you noticed how hotel receptionists always have a disappointed look on their face?

:behindsofa:

[HaaTa]

You've never been to hotels in Japan I take it.

(The receptionist would be fired for that there...)

[woody]

It matches the way you'd say the date, e.g. "January 5th, 2009"

This might be the cause ... or the effect. Because we here, just as many others (as stated in the thread) don't say January 5th.

OP's question is what could be the (absurd) basis for MM/DD/YYYY ordering. The thread naturally turned into what is better, which is kinda obvious. Only Fwiffo had pushed the topic a bit further.

The imperial units - meh, you all know Imperial troops pwn Metric troops once they agreed on exact values of the imperial units for air and sea.

Time units - weren't those based on Mayan's?

US dollar picture - I like the mason symbol. No conspiracy at all.


EDIT: yuck, can't put a [STRIKE]strikethrough[/STRIKE] tag.

[woody]

Big endian should be more than Little endian, just judging by the sound of it.

[Daniel Beaver]

I've gotten in the habit of writing the names of the months instead of the number. For example, 19 Nov 2010. It takes the ambiguity out of it.

When sorting is required, I use YYYYMMDD, since that makes the most sense.

[ch_123]

Saying day first is un-American.

[woody]

What's with the celebration of 4th of July then?

[Lanx]

What's with the celebration of 4th of July then?

same could be said about tragic events too it's 9-11, rarely have i heard a newscaster say september the 11'th and almost no one calls it nine-one-one (like the emergency code).
I think it's universally known throughout the world as 9-11 regardless of date format? how about non americans enlighten? or rather not living in america rather.

[Findecanor]

In Sweden: "23/6 2010" = "the twenty-third in the sixth, twenty-hundred-ten".
But ISO dates are just as common. I prefer to use ISO dates for everything.

[mike]

Why doesn't it make sense? If you're talking about the date, you can say March 4th for example. Or the Fourth of March. Since many times, people don't say the year when they say the date, the year's sort of an addition when needed.

It makes perfect sense if ...

• You speak and/or read English. In a time when the US (and other English speaking countries) want to export to places like China it may make sense to switch to a standard date format.
• You don't contract the date into digits, where the US (and GB) format is subject to confusion - send me a bill saying please pay by 12/01, and I might send you a cheque in time for the 12th January.

Use whatever format you like if your convenience is more important than the recipient's; use a standard format (ISO) if it's important that the date is communicated unambiguously.

[mike]

I think it's universally known throughout the world as 9-11 regardless of date format? how about non americans enlighten? or rather not living in america rather.

It's certainly known in the UK as "9-11"; perhaps because it's more of a name of an event than just a date.

[Rajagra]

The ISO standard is logical. We should all use it.

But they seem to have a sense of humour?:

[keyb_gr]

I have always been using yyyy-mm-dd (ISO) date format on my English-language pages. This seemed the only option that made any sense internationally.

And yes, mm/dd/yy vs. dd/mm/yy can be quite annoying.

The US still being non-metric is just another symptom of how far they've fallen behind. It seems people have realized one can't survive on trade and service alone though.

[Sam]

Both are inferior to year-month-day, which is lexicographically sortable, and has the good sense to put the most significant parts to the left like we do with numbers, times and everything else.

Oh, absolutely. Either YYYY.MM.DD, YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY/MM/DD, it doesn't matter to me what the delimiter is as long as the format year (all 4 digits please) then month, then day.  Any other method is simply retarded or not thinking globally.  Think about it, most numeric information you use has most significant to least significant:

Time
Phone number
IP address
Monetary amounts

Why is that?  Simply because numbers themselves are expressed as most significant to least significant - ie. the number 123 is one hundred, twenty, three.  So why mix it up when making some date format?  Even if you look at a calendar, it probably has the year at the top, then month headings, then day headings.

How to stop the nonsense?  Well, I personally fill out forms in the YYYY.MM.DD format all the time if no specific format is specified, and sometimes even if one of the retarded formats is specified.  I travel extensively between countries and trying to remember which format a country uses is sometimes extremely annoying.  When the subject of date formats comes up, I frequently try to convince those involved about the right date format.  If I request a date from anyone, I always insist on it being in the right format.  Whenever possible, if I'm designing some application or product that displays a date, I use YYYY.MM.DD format as the default and if possible the only format.  The more people are informed of this format, the more logical people will see how it's the only format that makes truly logical sense.  I know it's not much, but if everyone who's thought of this and sees the light would do their part, eventually we could perhaps change the world to use this one common format and stop the confusion.

And no, spelling out the month is no solution because people all over the world have different languages.

[mr_a500]

The US still being non-metric is just another symptom of how far they've fallen behind.

Bloody hell, yes. The US is probably the only country in the world not using metric - and on the rare times they do, they spell it wrong!

It's "metre", not "meter"! A "meter" is a device, not a measurement. It's "litre", not "liter". What the hell is a liter??

(...wait a minute... this is the rant thread, right?)

[msiegel]

no way, America is MILES ahead

(but kilometers behind

[Soarer]

What the hell is a liter??

An alphabet with only b to z.

[whininggit]

How about programs such as MS Access. Certain areas of the application follow the regional settings of the operating system (Forms, Tables etc) but others are treated as American format (SQL commands). Better still, it might decide to use EITHER UK or US format depending on whether or not the date is ambiguous! Give it either 31/10/1995 or 10/31/1995 (un-ambiguous) it will always get right - for the love of god at least fail with a meaningful error message so we know the input is wrong! Trying to be clever and letting the users continue inputting data in ignorance is never going to end well.

Always use yyyy-mm-dd!
(or a serious db engine)

[msiegel]

my spell Czech doesn't like kilometres

[db_Iodine]

Bloody hell, yes. The US is probably the only country in the world not using metric - and on the rare times they do, they spell it wrong!

It's "metre", not "meter"! A "meter" is a device, not a measurement. It's "litre", not "liter". What the hell is a liter??

(...wait a minute... this is the rant thread, right?)

no way, America is MILES ahead

(but kilometers behind

Could be a typo, but it's still damn funny.

[Lanx]

i haven't bought soda in a while but isn't that in 2liters? (and yes it's proper to say liters and not litres cuz that's what the label says). why is soda not sold in gallons?
also engines are in liters too, i've never seen a 4 gallon engine.

I'm not quite sure but i believe the only area that has both standards or try to force metric is in cooking? particular baking? don't powder require precise measurements? (like measure flour by weight not volume and in metric cuz you can have it to the gram)

why is this an issume? because it messes up the world, think about globalization, someone in america buys some plumbing from ppl in the UK and begin to install the plumbing only to figure out that the stuff doesn't fit cuz the UK used metric and now they gotta figure some way to go about it, or it "sorta" kinda does fit but is 1mm off cuz they kinda combined metric/imperial and it's just gonna break after a while.
(didn't a space shuttle crash cuz of this?)

[mike]

Bloody hell, yes. The US is probably the only country in the world not using metric - and on the rare times they do, they spell it wrong!

It's "metre", not "meter"! A "meter" is a device, not a measurement. It's "litre", not "liter". What the hell is a liter??

Well technically since the US inch has been defined in terms of metres since the 19th century it's possible to argue that they are using the metric system even if they don't know it. I guess that makes the inch analogous to the SI prefixes, so perhaps whenever someone announces they prefer inches, we should counter "Do you mean inchmetres?"

And technically "meter" (and quite possibly "liter") is a valid spelling in the US and only the US.

[woody]

Theatre, and so on. Blame the french pervs.

[iMav]

I've gotten in the habit of writing the names of the months instead of the number. For example, 19 Nov 2010. It takes the ambiguity out of it.

When sorting is required, I use YYYYMMDD, since that makes the most sense.

This is my preference as well.  When I was in the military (US Air Force), we were required to write the date as either DD Month YYYY or YYYYMMDD.  I'm also quite fond of military time (24-format).

i haven't bought soda in a while but isn't that in  2liters? (and yes it's proper to say liters and not litres cuz that's  what the label says). why is soda not sold in gallons?
also engines are in liters too, i've never seen a 4 gallon engine.

The engine being labeled in Litres is fairly recent.  It has been more common over our history to refer to engine displacement in cubic inches.  My maverick has a 302 ci engine.

[Brian8bit]

The engine being labeled in Litres is fairly recent.  It has been more common over our history to refer to engine displacement in cubic inches.  My maverick has a 302 ci engine.

Probably become more and more common with the influx of Japanese and European motors. I've seen Ford pushing the European Fiesta hard in the states at the minute on the high MPG tip. Would you rather have a 1.6 litre Fiesta, or a 97 ci Fiesta?

[db_Iodine]

I'd prefer the 1600cc Fiesta

[ricercar]

What the hell is a liter??

Something that lightens, eg: hiliter. I like the yellow ones.

But they seem to have a sense of humour?:

Because it's not an international standarisation organisation?

[ch_123]

Over here (and in the UK too I think), we tend to use a weird mixture of metric and imperial units. For example, I'd usually think of long distances in miles, I'd measure some things in inches, others in meters and fractions of meters. I'd know my own body weight in stone, but measure the weight of every things else in kilograms, and so on.