American date format

For some reason today I was struck by the notion that Americans write the date funny. I'm American and have never questioned it before, but I think it's weird now. We do month/day/year. Why?

Wouldn't day/month/year make more sense? Goes from what changes the most frequently to what changes the least frequently. Don't other countries do it like that?

Granted, I also think that America should switch to the metric system. :lol:

Because you say April 15, 2015.

4-15-2015.

It's as simple as that. This is how they did it in England before it was brought over. They changed, we did not.

Goken wrote: Granted, I also think that America should switch to the metric system. :lol:

England uses the metric system, and yet I still buy my milk in pints, measure my height in feet and inches, and weigh myself in pounds... you can change but you can't make people change with it

Australia uses the day/month/year format, it makes the most sense to me to put the slow changing stuff at the end as then descriptions of the date can be shortened depending on the likeleehood of the person knowing the slower changing elements.

Such that we'd say one of;
'the 15th'
'the 15th of April'
'the 15th of April 2015'

Because its assumed people know what year it is, duh, and its also likely they know which month it is, but its often easy to not know the day. So why start with the month!?

That said, we also sometimes 'say' it the other way... its not a rule how to say it, but here we always write it 15/04/2015.

Goken wrote: For some reason today I was struck by the notion that Americans write the date funny. I'm American and have never questioned it before, but I think it's weird now. We do month/day/year. Why?

Well *now*, in the digital age, it might make more sense. But Americans do it this way because we say it that way. January 19th, 2015. November 27th, 1645. October 1st, 1886.

Additionally, I think it may be a bit of categorization. If you ask "what date" without knowing "what month", you'll be a bit more confused. "When's your birthday?" "The 25th..." and people stare at you blankly. "November", and people are much more likely to go "Oh, cool!" and drop it as though that's an acceptable answer. The dates, to us, are subconsciously subordinate to the months. And, since we tend to live in the relative present, the year only matters if it isn't this one, so the month sees the most usage.

Those are my theories.

Adder wrote: Australia uses the day/month/year format, it makes the most sense to me to put the slow changing stuff at the end as then descriptions of the date can be shortened depending on the likeleehood of the person knowing the slower changing elements.

Such that we'd say one of;
'the 15th'
'the 15th of April'
'the 15th of April 2015'

Because its assumed people know what year it is, duh, and its also likely they know which month it is, but its often easy to not know the day. So why start with the month!?

That said, we also sometimes 'say' it the other way... its not a rule how to say it, but here we always write it 15/04/2015.

Unless you are a pregnant mother to be....then its quite possibly you forget the year.....ALOT I had alot of mommy moments when I was pregnant with my oldest which was quite embarassing during the payment of our new house and drawing up contracts I frequently had to re-look at Mindas' signature and dates haha

So what about a Jedi standard!!!! LOL, just kidding.

I think the US military uses DTG's;

JP 5-0, Joint Operation Planning wrote: The date and time, expressed as six digits followed by the time zone suffix at which the message was prepared for transmission (first pair of digits denotes the date, second pair the hours, third pair the minutes, followed by a three-letter month abbreviation and two-digit year abbreviation.)

eg now is; 160021 APR 15

Though with timezone's thrown in I thought - unsure if they adhere to it religiously.

idiots log starwars date 20150415...stumbled into a forum discussion on establishing some sort of globally standard calendar...submitted a joking standard....awaiting reply.... :woohoo:

i think if the military has a religion it is "procedure" lol

but thats the guess of an outsider

i wonder if anyone noticed the date format i did...lol