Why do you Americans write calendar dates MM-DD instead of DD-MM

Not just that. All measures are different. Heat, liquid amounts, weight, length...

That's like asking the Brits, why they drive on the left side of the road!

cause we can

I've never understood that, as I grew up with day-month-year... I know people who've made the mistake in thinking 9/11 is 9th Nov and feel ashamed when they realise they've made that simple mistake..

Yes that's very true too even USA imperial measurements differ from European !

I suppose it's because we *say* "November 18th", not "18th November". Now, what *that* is, I don't know..

[link to en.wikipedia.org]

Usage of metric system...

But that is fudging it, eg the UK driving all measurements are legally in Imperial (inches, feet, miles) the train system is in imperial decimal but not metric.. it uses links, chains, furlongs and miles for distance.. a link is 0.001 of a furlong.

It also works in area, thus 10 square links make up one chain, 10 square chains make up an acre.. this is also used in the US, and while some frame it as metric it is not, it is imperial decimal.

The metric system has adopted a number of imperial measurements, but that does not make them any less imperial simply because they have a "metric" brand now attached to them (joule/Watt etc)

it is no where are clear cut as people make it out to be... you buy a house in the UK and all the rooms will be measured in feet and inches, but buy a carpet and it will be in meters... you buy 6 inch x 4 inch timber in meters, or tyres in inches x mm,,

So really we end up using a combination of imperial (decimal and otherwise) and metric, a sort of MetPerial measurement system..

I's more logical and efficient to put the month first. You only have to look once at the month/day/year where you have to look several times when using the european way.

Just like the metric system is dumb.

Americans do everything better.

Because we don't want to be kept in suspense in regards to what Holiday is coming up this month. We want to know right away what month it is so we know if we have a vacation day coming up.

Hmm some interesting responses here thank you all

There is a translation/calculation that needs to be made with a date in number format dealing with the Month. It is best to get the translation out of the way first and then gather the rest of the data to come to the conclusion.

You don't think about it like this but that is what the mind is doing. To gather the data of a "day" first then to have to do the translation/calculation 2nd while still remembering the "day" before gathering the year takes more time. We are talking a very small amount of time but time nevertheless. The concept of placing the translation/calculated part first would have thus been intuitive by those who structured the date nomenclature.

My biggest problem as a kid was adjusting to the date. Lol

I'm still not adjusted. Doesn't make any sense.

BTW IT came from England. We didn't change they wanted to adapt to the European model.

We also say "back and forth", and my Polish friend said it should be "forth and back" and I said it's "back and forth", because we are already, always moving forward.....

This. It's more poetic. Saying the day before the month feels awkward and cumbersome.

day-month-year wasn't Murikan so they invented their own so than can claim they invented time.

you and your polish friend should stop going forth and back about that.....

I use YYYYMMDD.HHMM when naming time sensitive files. Always have.

because if you ask an american what day it is, he would say

"it's november eighteenth"

and if you ask a britt they're all like


"pip pip my good mate, tis the eight-teenth of novembre, cheerio"

Origins come from middle management promoting change for the sake of change to justify their job so one day one of them said hey we are going to put the date first then the month. :)

^^^This just about wraps it up^^^

Europeans have always followed the dictates of their gooberments which also means the military ... it's military terminology and logistics ...

Americans don't .... the US gooberment tried and FAILED to force the metric system on us

Before humans understood a week, month and a year, they were in agreement about the Day (the most highest, the Sun returning for another new day) and the Night; human were conscious of the returning day, long before the concept of seasons changes "DD-MM-YYYY."

It is logical, the other is not. The month you are in, the day of the month you are in, then the year the month and day you are in. Simple, you can write it any way you want, you can say I live in the year 2014 in the month of Nov which is the 11th mo, today is the 18 day of the 11th month.

Last Edited by Daughter on 11/18/2014 03:18 PM

Can't argue with that

US measurement is base twelve like the Ancient Egyptians. One inch is very close to one cubit. The US announced it would change to metric some 35 years ago and then it never happened. There is something to the Egyptian measuring system that the US wont give up. It is a power system and a successful system using numerology as its base to a successful civilization.

I thought this was simple..

When speaking it is far more natural to say, "November 18th" than it is to say "The 18th of November".

You see.. November is the subject and the day(18th) is the adjective. Only backwards ass countries and Yoda speak with the sentence emphasis on the descriptor.

"Date and time format - ISO 8601
What is ISO 8601?

ISO 8601 describes an internationally accepted way to represent dates and times using numbers.

When dates are represented with numbers they can be interpreted in different ways. For example, 01/05/12 could mean January 5, 2012, or May 1, 2012. On an individual level this uncertainty can be very frustrating, in a business context it can be very expensive. Organizing meetings and deliveries, writing contracts and buying airplane tickets can be very difficult when the date is unclear.

ISO 8601 tackles this uncertainty by setting out an internationally agreed way to represent dates:

YYYY-MM-DD

For example, September 27, 2012 is represented as 2012-09-27."

[link to www.iso.org]


[link to xkcd.com]

why ? we do it do piss off the rest of the world.