Why do Americans do the date differently?

[Ranma12569]

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 hab preference, but I think it sounds better in casual speech to say (month) (day) than to say the (day) of (month).

I have to be honest and say that most people i known when asked what the date is generally only say the day e.g "it's the 1st" or when asked for the month as well say "It's the 1st of january"
could just be the area i'm from though.

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.

I can agree with this for the most part except for the driving on the opposite side of the road as most countries in the world drive on the right hand side of the road and very few of them drive on the left. Also i'm not 100% sure but i think most countries also had their own system of measurement before imperial and metric but again i could be wrong.

OT: I really don't know why it, putting it month-day-year does confuse me sometimes when reading the date though

 

[JediMB]

I like to go with (YY)YY-MM-DD, since it follows the same pattern as HH:MM:SS.

 

[Merkavar]

it should do big to small or small to big not big small bigger. thats just crazy

should go day month year. as in gets bigger. not month day year. big small biggest? thats crazy talk right there.

i hate it when american dates are below the 12 day cause i cant tell if its american style date or normal person date

 

[Ironic Pirate]

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.

To be fair, most of the language differences are fairly normal, considering we broke away from Britain hundreds of years ago. Considering how much languages have changed since then, it's a surprise they aren't more different.

I've always thought it was gradually getting more specific. Take the date November 17th 1995.

November isn't helpful, there have been thousands of days in November. Neither is November 17th, there's been lots of those, too. November 17th 1995, though, there's only one of them.

 

[Xcelsior]

Does it really matter?

 

[Merkavar]

I've always thought it was gradually getting more specific. Take the date November 17th 1995.

November isn't helpful, there have been thousands of days in November. Neither is November 17th, there's been lots of those, too. November 17th 1995, though, there's only one of them.

not sure what you mean. that date has always(long time atleast) consisted of a day month and year, how is it getting more specific?

were not using starday 2011.25 or anything

 

[smearyllama]

Because it's a different system than those dirty French use!

Well, I don't know.
Probably because we feel like it.
I like it, anyways.

 

[Something Amyss]

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.

It's more failure to evolve. Like with the metric system. Technically, we adopted it in the 70s, but learning a new method of doing things is "too hard." I use quotes because in my electronics courses, I frequently had to convert between the two and can usually do it on the fly, but I'm not a typical American.

 

[Criquefreak]

Because any other arrangement would make pi day impossible?

 

[Ironic Pirate]

I've always thought it was gradually getting more specific. Take the date November 17th 1995.

November isn't helpful, there have been thousands of days in November. Neither is November 17th, there's been lots of those, too. November 17th 1995, though, there's only one of them.

not sure what you mean. that date has always(long time atleast) consisted of a day month and year, how is it getting more specific?

were not using starday 2011.25 or anything

I don't mean more specific then the other way, I mean as a progression, from left to right.

11/17/95. 11 is November, and there's thirty Novembers a year. Since the invention of the modern calendar, there's been thousands of days in November. 17 is the day in November. There's only 12 17ths a year, and only one November 17th. Over the course of time, there's still a lot of them, but not as many as in November, if this still makes sense.

And then there's the year. 1995. There's only going to be 365 days in that year, ever. It's the most specific.

I'll explain it to you too. It's going from left to right, getting more specific.

 

[Fraught]

God dammit, I wanted to use that picture! Damn yoooouuuuuu!

Anyway, I find it odd, too. Why can't we have a unified system for bloody dates? Why does everything have to be different with y'Americans?

God damn.

 

[BlastedTheWorm]

I always thought it was because of, well where I'm from we say, for example "12th of May, 2009", hence DD/MM/YYYY, whereas most Americans I know of would say "May 12, 2009", hence MM/DD/YYYY.

Although I assume it's nothing to do with that whatsoever, that's my reasoning.

 

[MrEnigami]

I'll explain it to you too. It's going from left to right, getting more specific.

No. No that's just silly.

Day < Month < Year

That's how it should be. That makes the most sense. Besides;

So it's the 5th. Cool. Well that's not specific... there are 12 5ths in a year. The 5th of what? Oh right, the 5th of November. Cool. So there have been 2010 of those in the calendar we all use. Interesting. Oh right, it was the 1999th 5th of November. Cool.

5th November, 1999

See?

 

[Merkavar]

I've always thought it was gradually getting more specific. Take the date November 17th 1995.

November isn't helpful, there have been thousands of days in November. Neither is November 17th, there's been lots of those, too. November 17th 1995, though, there's only one of them.

not sure what you mean. that date has always(long time atleast) consisted of a day month and year, how is it getting more specific?

were not using starday 2011.25 or anything

I don't mean more specific then the other way, I mean as a progression, from left to right.

11/17/95. 11 is November, and there's thirty Novembers a year. Since the invention of the modern calendar, there's been thousands of days in November. 17 is the day in November. There's only 12 17ths a year, and only one November 17th. Over the course of time, there's still a lot of them, but not as many as in November, if this still makes sense.

And then there's the year. 1995. There's only going to be 365 days in that year, ever. It's the most specific.

I'll explain it to you too. It's going from left to right, getting more specific.

17/11/95

17 is the days, there are 12 days that are the 17th in a year, 11 is november, there are 30 days that are novembers in a year. 95 is the year there are 365 days in the year that are 95

so using your example i still prefer normal date system where its goes from smallest to biggest.

and no matter what order the date format with each step it gets more specific 17th could be in any month or year. 17/11 one specific month. but lets say that the date goes day then year

17/95 its more specific cause its one day of any month in 1995.

anyway enough gibberish

this pretty much sums it up

 

[88chaz88]

I've always thought it was gradually getting more specific. Take the date November 17th 1995.

November isn't helpful, there have been thousands of days in November. Neither is November 17th, there's been lots of those, too. November 17th 1995, though, there's only one of them.

not sure what you mean. that date has always(long time atleast) consisted of a day month and year, how is it getting more specific?

were not using starday 2011.25 or anything

I don't mean more specific then the other way, I mean as a progression, from left to right.

11/17/95. 11 is November, and there's thirty Novembers a year. Since the invention of the modern calendar, there's been thousands of days in November. 17 is the day in November. There's only 12 17ths a year, and only one November 17th. Over the course of time, there's still a lot of them, but not as many as in November, if this still makes sense.

And then there's the year. 1995. There's only going to be 365 days in that year, ever. It's the most specific.

I'll explain it to you too. It's going from left to right, getting more specific.

By your logic that makes the time here 58:14.

 

[Merkavar]

I always thought it was because of, well where I'm from we say, for example "12th of May, 2009", hence DD/MM/YYYY, whereas most Americans I know of would say "May 12, 2009", hence MM/DD/YYYY.

Although I assume it's nothing to do with that whatsoever, that's my reasoning.

By your logic that makes the time here 58:14.

see i have no problem if it goes month day year when you actually spell out the month cause that is perfectly clear to everyone. may 5th 2011

but with just number i think everyone should go day month year cause its just logical progression of the day. like how with time it goes hour minutes seconds. big to small not big to bigger to smallest.

 

[Vryyk]

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.

You're just mad because England couldn't hold on to it's colonies. Next time bring more soldiers.

 

[WanderingFool]

IDK, Im still wondering why we dont use the more simple Metric system.

 

[Merkavar]

IDK, Im still wondering why we dont use the more simple Metric system.

please explain an example of a metric date system please

 

[lokun489]

because month is easier to see first when looking through your stuff, then day, then year.