# American date format, why month, day, year? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 17, 2004, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551 "2004-04-17T19:06:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/21 "2004-04-17T22:34:31Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > We gave the British date format the old heave-ho along with Mad King George and afternoon tea. It is a freedom thing, I think. Sounds like freedom to wear your pants backwards to me. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/22 "2004-04-17T23:00:55Z")
I don’t want to hear anyone from a country where you could hear a reasonable person say “that bloke 5 miles away is 75cm tall, drinks pints, has a 300 sq. meter flat and weighs 14 stone” lecture me about logic. 😃 The “American” way seems more “logical” to me, although I do agree that “2004 April 17” is probably the most logical, as it starts “large” and gets progressively “smaller”. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/23 "2004-04-17T23:08:04Z")
> [@Regory](#): > > I’ve been taught to write “2 March 1999.” The reason my grade teacher told me was that if your writing was messy, people wouldn’t get confused and think it was March 21 and they had somehow travelled a millenium back in time. Anyone who could be confused like that deserves to be confused. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/24 "2004-04-17T23:12:49Z")
> [@MC Master of Ceremonies](#): > > No we don’t though, only in American English do you write “December 1”, you’d write “1st December” in UK English. Not true…as pointed out in the [Guardian style guide:](http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/page/0,5817,184835,00.html) > [@](#): > > **dates** > January 1 2000 (no commas ) > It is occasionally alleged that putting month before date in this way is an “Americanisation”; in which case it should be pointed out that this has been our style since the first issue of the Manchester Guardian on May 5 1821 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/25 "2004-04-17T23:36:36Z")
> [@Rex Fenestrarum](#): > > I don’t want to hear anyone from a country where you could hear a reasonable person say “that bloke 5 miles away is 75cm tall, drinks pints, has a 300 sq. meter flat and weighs 14 stone” lecture me about logic. 😃 > > The “American” way seems more “logical” to me, although I do agree that “2004 April 17” is probably the most logical, as it starts “large” and gets progressively “smaller”. Incidentally, this is the way Hungarians write their dates, from largest to smallest (e.g. 2004 Apr. 17). It’s quite nice if you’re naming computer files by date in this yyyy/mm/dd format as when they sort, they end up in chronological order. ---
**Author:** ![WILLASS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/54ee81/32.png) [@WILLASS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WILLASS)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/26 "2004-04-17T23:53:24Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Not true…as pointed out in the [Guardian style guide:](http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/page/0,5817,184835,00.html) That link just appears to be a claim that the Guardian invented that format rather than proof that the English universally use that format, I may be wrong as I am rather tired. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/27 "2004-04-17T23:59:45Z")
It doesn’t claim that they invented it - it just highlights that it’s a format that has always been acceptable usage in Britain ---
**Author:** ![ForumBot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee59a6/32.png) [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/28 "2004-04-18T00:05:38Z")
> [@dnooman](#): > > Maybe we’ll switch to a more sensible format when we pull our heads out of our asses and switch to metric. That might make too much sense though. > > “America - Baffling the rest of the world since 1492” You got me there. Metric time _is_ pretty sweet. 60 Minutes just aren’t enough. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/29 "2004-04-18T00:17:47Z")
> [@Rex Fenestrarum](#): > > I don’t want to hear anyone from a country where you could hear a reasonable person say “that bloke 5 miles away is 75cm tall, drinks pints, has a 300 sq. meter flat and weighs 14 stone” lecture me about logic. 😃 > > The “American” way seems more “logical” to me, although I do agree that “2004 April 17” is probably the most logical, as it starts “large” and gets progressively “smaller”. The bloke in question would either be a dwarf or a seriously underage (and overweight) drinker. Anyway, I think **Regory** hits upon a good point - in our everyday lives, we don’t spend much time worrying about things more than a month or two in the future, and we soon forget things more than a month or so in the past. And our number system leads us to expect the most significant terms to come first, which would suggest year/month/day rather than day/month/year. Therefore, it’s reasonable to dispense with the “year” part, which rarely has significance to us, and simply express dates in the remaining terms, month/day. So maybe the American convention isn’t so illogical. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/30 "2004-04-18T00:19:32Z")
When James Taylor sang _The first of December was covered in snow_ in the song “Sweet Baby James,” he wasn’t doing it to abandon American style for British style. In fact, that verse of the song was about Massachusetts, so he would have no reason to try for a British effect there. No, he sang it that way simply because the line scanned better with the syllables arranged like that. I bet you when speaking prose he says “December first” like any other American. If you said “first December,” hell, that would be confusing. I would use that phrase if I meant to say “This is the first December in over 10 years that I haven’t gone caroling,” or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![WILLASS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/54ee81/32.png) [@WILLASS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WILLASS)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/31 "2004-04-18T01:11:11Z")
> [@](#): > > It is occasionally alleged that putting month before date in this way is an “Americanisation”; in which case it should be pointed out that this has been _our_ style since the first issue of the Manchester Guardian on May 5 1821 (itallics mine) I still don’t see how this is saying anything other than the Manchester Guardian used this format from 1821 and continues to do so and furthermore this has to be the only useage of this format I have ever heard of in Britain. Am I really that tired that I am totally missing the point? It is two in the morning here so i’m sorry if I am talking rubbish… ---
**Author:** ![WILLASS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/54ee81/32.png) [@WILLASS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WILLASS)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/32 "2004-04-18T01:21:25Z")
The way I see it if you were to write a date out like this: It is the first day of December in the year 2004. Then it would be reasonable to shorten it to: 1st of December 2004 Then the obvious next step is: 01/12/04 Thats the way I would see the contraction starting from, I wonder where the ‘Americanism’ started from? Was it a deliberate attempt to distance yourselves from the original English version or is it a contraction from a longer way of writing dates out and you differed from that source. I really hope this makes sense as i’m feeling very odd and tired right now…in fact this is my last post tonight as i’m in danger of talking rubbish. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/33 "2004-04-18T02:21:08Z")
> [@Jomo Mojo](#): > > When James Taylor sang > > _The first of December was covered in snow_ … he sang it that way simply because the line scanned better with the syllables arranged like that. I bet you when speaking prose he says “December first” like any other American. Similarly, Irving Berlin probably didn’t refer to Christmas Eve as “December the twenty-fourth” in normal conversation, but he did to fit the meter of the little-heard opening verse of [perhaps his most famous song](http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/pennvalley/biology/lewis/crosby/wxmas.html). ---
**Author:** ![lektrikpuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/47e85d/32.png) [@lektrikpuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lektrikpuke)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/34 "2004-04-18T02:43:51Z")
As I understand the cardinal and ordinal numbering system (and grammar) it’s the 1st (first) of some month and some month 1. That’s why we say July 4 and Fourth of July. The fourth (day is implied) of July. As for why our dating system is different from that which is used by the rest of the world, ? 🙂 I say “God bless Great Britain, the 51st state in the union” (either that or the EU, you choose) ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/35 "2004-04-18T04:49:30Z")
> [@Sternvogel](#): > > Similarly, Irving Berlin probably didn’t refer to Christmas Eve as “December the twenty-fourth” in normal conversation, but he did to fit the meter of the little-heard opening verse of [perhaps his most famous song](http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/pennvalley/biology/lewis/crosby/wxmas.html). [hijack]It’s interesting how these things work out. Your cite says that all concerned with _White Christmas_ thought it a nice little song at the time. Tex Beneke of Glen Miller’s orchestra told the story of _Chattanooga Choo Choo_ on a TV program. When it was recorded as part of the score for _Sun Valley Serenade_ everyone considered it definitely Side 2, just a throw-away fill in. It went on to sell over a million copies, the first record to do so (at least for the recording company, DECCA?,) and the idea of a Gold Record for high selling records originated because of that performance.[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![straykat23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@straykat23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straykat23)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/36 "2004-04-18T05:29:36Z")
Let me add another kink to international date formats. I worked for NEC (Japanese owned company) in the mid-Eighties in the US. One of the first documents to cross my desk was dated 14/10/32. My immediate reading was October 14, 1932. Knowing that chips were not invented back then, I thought the year was a typo. Turned out that 32 was the number of years that the current emperor had reigned. The majority of Japanese engineering senior staff used this method; the younger minority did not. This might be a usage for NEC engineers only; I don’t know. I do know that everyone accepted nearly any format that went through the system and intuitively knew what the author meant (except me - would 6/9/04 mean June 9 or September 6? 2004 or the fourth year of an emperor’s reign?) I worked for an American company in Malaysia for a year in the late Nineties. The Chinese-Malays used the mm/dd/yy format; the Malays used dd/mm/yy; East Indian-Malays used dd/mm/yy. The Malays and Indians were still using the British system; the Chinese adopted the US system. I know that someone will say that in the mid-Eighties the emperor had been in office only twenty-something years, not thirty-something. Sorry, but it’s Saturday night, it’s late, and I do remember ‘32’ although I could be a little bit off. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/37 "2004-04-18T06:32:38Z")
> [@WILLASS](#): > > The way I see it if you were to write a date out like this: > > It is the first day of December in the year 2004. > > Then it would be reasonable to shorten it to: > > 1st of December 2004 > > Then the obvious next step is: > > 01/12/04 The way I see it if you were to write out a date like this: It is December first, 2004. Then it would be reasonable to shorten it to: December 1, 2004 Then the obvious next step is: 12/1/04 Thats the way I would see the contraction starting from, I wonder where the ‘Rest-of-the Worldism’ started from? Small humor. I’ll be here all week. Tip your wait-staff… That being said, most references are from general to specific. I might say, “I’ll be there in the autumn, maybe October.” No-one says, “I’ll be there in October, probably in the autumn.” The same thing applies for locations. “I’m going back East in a week.” “Yeah, where to?” “Philly.” You can probably fill in the rest on that one. My point being, and I do have one, that month/day is very practical, as is day/month. It’s shorthand. Only when you have to append the year does the illogical beast rear its head. For what it’s worth, I write my checks, and so forth, _21 October 1997_. There is no mistaking that representation. Logical as I am I still respect convention. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/38 "2004-04-18T07:50:58Z")
> [@WILLASS](#): > > Thats the way I would see the contraction starting from, I wonder where the ‘Americanism’ started from? Was it a deliberate attempt to distance yourselves from the original English version … ? Nice try, **WILLASS** , but hold up there a moment. What’s this about the original English version being day/month/year? According to [this website](http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/c/calendar-date.html) we **are** using the original English version, so don’t begin to think that we Americans somehow corrupted the pure or “correct” version. It is also corroborated on [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/vote), which claims this style is used by the _Guardian_, yes, but also the _The Times_, _The Sun_, and _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (which was formerly a UK publication). The UK, according to those sites, only began using day/month/year when it imported the idea from Europe early in the 20th century. (Admittedly, Wikipedia’s entry under “date” seems to use the same source as [encyclopedia4u.com](http://encyclopedia4u.com) does.) This isn’t in direct answer to your “why are Americans so backward?” question, but while looking curiously into the history of dating conventions I also happened across [this site](http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/whyread/florilegium.htm), which seems to show that even the Europeans never had it quite straightened out, at least not until some serious calendar reform took place. As examples, the various dates from medieval documents are literally transcribed— > [@](#): > > Dat(um) sub d(ie) X kal(endas) Ianuari(i), an(no) primo rign(i) n(ostr)i > Given on 10 kalens January in the first year of our reign… (23rd December 695) > > data in mens(e) Decemb(ri) anno quartodecimo et octavo regni n(ost)ri > given in the month of December in the 14th and 8th year of our reign (December 781) > > and > > annu(m) ab incar— > natione d(omi)ni dccccxxxiii, indictione(m) vi, Regnante domno henrico xiii annos, > sub comite Pernhardo, die iduu(m) Augustarum > in the year of the incarnation of the lord 933, 6th indiction, 13th year of the reign of lord Henry … ides August (13th August 933) Kalens, according to the site, is from the Roman dating system and means “first of the month,” so in order to derive the date 10 kalens January you start at the first of January and count _backwards_ inclusively (assuming 31 days in December). At least until you get to the middle (_ides_) of December, where you start counting backward from the middle, until you reach the nones, when you count backward from _that_. (In other words, it works the same way Roman numerals do: if it’s just over ten, you say “ten and a bit” like XI or XII or XIII. If it’s just under fifteen, you write “fifteen minus a few” like XIIV or XIV. Or maybe it’s like “8 more shopping days until the winter solstice!” or saying “it’s a quarter to nine” instead of “eight forty-five.”) Our dating conventions could be a lot worse. Check out [this medieval calendar calculator](http://www.wallandbinkley.com/mcc/mcc_main.html) to get some idea of what we _could_ have ended up with. A few notes on the Roman calendar can be found [here](http://www.sizes.com/time/cal_Roman.htm) and it lists the Roman word as _kalends_, not kalens. The methods day/month/year or year/month/day are both logical in a purely mathematical sense, of course, and greatly assist with organizing dates in a computer database. Mathematical logic, however, doesn’t really reflect the characteristic of the languages that cause one usage or another to “make sense.” The real question should be, as **dnooman** pointed out with the metric system, is “why haven’t the Americans given up on the crazy English system yet?” I don’t have the answer to that, unfortunately. Maybe the Perfect Master will answer this question in more depth? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/39 "2004-04-18T15:29:42Z")
> [@missbunny](#): > > Because in English we say, “December 1, 2004.” Not 1 December 2004, as is the format in many foreign languages. That assumes that all English speakers use the same MM DD YY format that is common in the U.S., which is not correct. Growing up in Canada, I always saw the date written either DD MM YY, or YY MM DD. I first saw the MM DD YY format when I was in the U.S. It’s becoming more common in Canada, I think because of the influence of software from the U.S. using that format. ---
**Author:** ![Regory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3ab097/32.png) [@Regory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regory)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551/40 "2004-04-18T17:10:54Z")
> [@MonkeyMensch](#): > > “I’ll be there in the autumn, maybe October.” No-one says, “I’ll be there in October, probably in the autumn.” “Maybe I’ll get there October, but it’ll definitely be sometime in autumn.” 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-date-format-why-month-day-year/240551.md?page=3)