# Any case where MM-DD-YY dating has cost money? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 23, 2023, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594 "2023-09-23T11:50:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2023, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/81 "2023-09-28T11:39:56Z")
> [@abcdefghij](#): > > Asked and answered. The offset is relative to UTC. Unlike “L”, it’s not ambiguous. You’re right. I suppose it does remove some ambiguity. Except for the person who is UTC+8, but sees UTC+7 on the ISO date and forgot that the clocks changed last month, so he isn’t +7 anymore and that date doesn’t actually apply to him. For simplicity, when anything involves participants from multiple time zones, I would just prefer UTC only. Let people figure out their own offset instead of mistakenly thinking the one included on the calendar invite is theirs. Anytime I see an offset included like that, I just ignore it and focus on the UTC time, then figure out where I will be that day and what my time will be at the given UTC. Including an offset like that, to me, has always just been background noise. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2023, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/82 "2023-09-28T11:53:22Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > Date on back of Presto card (Southern Ontario regional rail and bus card): DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY (not sure which). Mine is DD/MM/YYYY. ---
**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:** [September 28, 2023, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/83 "2023-09-28T12:13:34Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > But it does sound a bit jarring “I am going to go to hospital” or “He went to University” like there is only one., It never struck me as implying there’s only one, because we in the US have the exact construction in “He went to college/school/high school.” Why we don’t with “university” is some quirk of US English, I guess. Similarly, with “hospital” we in the US have constructions like “she’s at church” or “she’s in school” as opposed to “she’s at the church” and “She’s in the school,” which have slightly different meanings. Why “hospital” was left out for US English, but retained for UK English? Dunno. It’s not that hard for me to make it not sound quirky if I analogize that way (or have consumed plenty of British media.) ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2023, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/84 "2023-09-28T18:20:55Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > It never struck me as implying there’s only one, because we in the US have the exact construction in “He went to college/school/high school.” Why we don’t with “university” is some quirk of US English, I guess. I suspect that this has something to do with “college” being the default term for tertiary education in the US. The usage is sharply different in Canada, where “college” and “university” are two different things. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2023, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/85 "2023-09-28T18:22:23Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > [ > > I used to drive a truck years ago, and the shorthand we used in radio communications was fascinating. “I’m on Ontario one-seven ee-bee at K-marker 518, ETA White River at about 2000, fuel fifteen, ETA Sault Ste. Marie 2215. Will update more exact as happens.” > > Translation: “I’m on Ontario one-seven [Ontario Highway 17] ee-bee [eastbound] at K-marker [kilometer milepost] five-one-eight [518], ETA [Estimated Time of Arrival] White River at about 2000 [“twenty-hundred,” or 8:00 PM], fuel [stop for] fifteen [minutes], ETA Sault Ste. Marie 2215 [“twenty-two fifteen” or “two-two-one-five” for clarity, or 10:15 PM]. Will update more exact as happens.” This sounds awesome. I have got to write it into a book. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2023, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/86 "2023-09-28T19:43:21Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > kilometer milepost That’s an amusing expression. The whole discussion reminds me of my favorite trivia question: How is it possible that a clock in an eastern seaboard US state can correctly read the same as a clock in a western seaboard US state? The Florida panhandle is in the central time zone. There is a strip along the eastern edge of Oregon that is on mountain time. During the night in which the switch from DST to ST takes place, a clock on central time will run till 3:00 AM then switch back to 2:00 AM and run through that hour again. Meantime a clock on mountain time will also be going from 2:00 AM to 3:00 AM and so they read the same time. At the end of that hour the clock on CT will now continue to run, while the one on MT will revert back to 2:00 AM. So for that one hour a year a clock in the western panhandle of Florida correctly reads the same time as a clock in that strip in eastern Oregon. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2023, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/87 "2023-09-28T20:47:33Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > It is quite usual in Southern Ontario to say something like, “The kids are off to university in the fall! Joe is going to Western, and Abi is going to Waterloo. We are so proud of them!” I don’t know. As a native Southern Ontario English speaker myself, I think the more natural phrasing would be, "The kids are off to university in the fall! Joe is going to Western, and Abi is going to Waterloo. We are so proud of Abi!” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2023, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/88 "2023-09-28T23:19:37Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > This sounds awesome. I have got to write it into a book. 🙂 An extremely similar format is used in aviation to report one’s position when not in radar contact. The only meaningful difference is the addition of altitude. It amounts to: > I’m [here] [now-ish] [this high up]. I’ll be at [there] [then-ish]. Then [this otherplace] later. I have [this] much fuel now. As one hopscotches along from point to point after each passage you update your readings and estimates then report passing that latest point. Lather rinse repeat until you get there or re-enter radar contact. When radio comms are flaky, delivering canned messages in an expected format and only in an expected format greatly facilitates accuracy. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/89 "2023-09-29T01:06:45Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > > [@Sunspace](#): > > > > It is quite usual in Southern Ontario to say something like, “The kids are off to university in the fall! Joe is going to Western, and Abi is going to Waterloo. We are so proud of them!” > > I don’t know. As a native Southern Ontario English speaker myself, I think the more natural phrasing would be, "The kids are off to university in the fall! Joe is going to Western, and Abi is going to Waterloo. We are so proud of Abi!” 🙂 I said nothing about WLU\*! (\*Wilfred Laurier University, just down the road from Waterloo University, and often forgotten by people at Waterloo.) ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/90 "2023-09-29T01:37:04Z")
> [@Digger11](#): > > When people are talking out loud, does anybody actually **say** “23 August”? I do. 21 years in the service can have all sorts of effects on the way you do things. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/91 "2023-09-29T02:05:40Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Although interestingly enough, the USPS standard for addresses dropped the comma between city and state a couple of decades ago. Using the comma is non-standard now. More than just a couple of decades – I was taught the commaless version in high-school typing class back in '71. > [@suranyi](#): > > The US holiday is universally called “The Fourth of July”, not “July the Fourth”. So there’s no absolute rule. I call the holiday “Independence Day”. The fourth of July is the day between the third of July and the fifth of July. > [@Kzbre5m](#): > > It confuses the pharmacy people when asking my birth date and I say (for example) 25 September instead of 2509 (or worse, as I have a low digit date and say 1209). I’m being clear in the date. When I go to the hospital (or other medical business), they always ask my name and birthdate. If today were my fiftieth birthday (which it isn’t – oh, to be that young again!) I would say “28 September 73”. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/92 "2023-09-29T03:18:01Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > > [@Spoons](#): > > > > kilometer milepost > > That’s an amusing expression. > > The whole discussion reminds me of my favorite trivia question: How is it possible that a clock in an eastern seaboard US state can correctly read the same as a clock in a western seaboard US state? > > The Florida panhandle is in the central time zone. There is a strip along the eastern edge of Oregon that is on mountain time. During the night in which the switch from DST to ST takes place, a clock on central time will run till 3:00 AM then switch back to 2:00 AM and run through that hour again. Meantime a clock on mountain time will also be going from 2:00 AM to 3:00 AM and so they read the same time. At the end of that hour the clock on CT will now continue to run, while the one on MT will revert back to 2:00 AM. So for that one hour a year a clock in the western panhandle of Florida correctly reads the same time as a clock in that strip in eastern Oregon. Had to read that a couple of times… interesting! In Eastern Time, the transition between Standard and Daylight time takes place at 02:00. I guess the Central transition takes place at the same moment? And would the Atlantic transition then take place at 01:00? ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/93 "2023-09-29T03:52:47Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Any reasonable business should use CCYYMMDD. DDMMYY is no better than MMDDYY. Both are garbage date formats. CCYYMMDD 2023-09-23 can be sorted and date math is relatively simple. > > IT Professional. Retired… This is the way. IT Professional. Soon to be retired. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/94 "2023-09-29T12:48:47Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > In Eastern Time, the transition between Standard and Daylight time takes place at 02:00. I guess the Central transition takes place at the same moment? And would the Atlantic transition then take place at 01:00? All US timezone transitions happen when the clock in old local time hits 0200. At that moment the clock resets back to 0100 local, or forward to 0300 local. The key thing here is we have an east-coast state that has both Eastern and Central time and also a west-coast state that has both Mountain and Pacific time. So normally the times in far western FL and far eastern OR are (surprisingly) one hour apart: Central & Mountain respectively. This is true year round, except during the transitions. During the night DST ends when it hits 0200 Central Daylight, first FL updates to be earlier, and the clocks match because Central Standard is the same time as Mountain Daylight. An hour later the Mountain TZ makes the same jump from DST to Standard and now once again Central Standard and Mountain Standard are an hour apart. This same effect occurs all up and down each timezone border. It’s just weird in this example because we don’t think of the two coasts as having adjacent time zones; there’s the two in the middle sandwiched in there. Which is mostly, but not entirely, true. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/95 "2023-09-29T12:59:25Z")
> [@colinfred](#): > > Americans use MM-DD-YY as a shortform, the rest of the world uses the much more sensible DD-MM-YY. Why is it “much more sensible”? Don’t get me wrong, I think we should join the rest of the world simply because they’re the rest of world but, when someone asks me the date, I say, “September 29”, not “the 29th of September”. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/96 "2023-09-29T13:30:26Z")
The units are supposed to come in either increasing (D–M–Y) or decreasing (Y–M–D) order. If only a month name and day number are involved, as in “29th September”, it does not matter. ---
**Author:** ![jgc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6a8cbe/32.png) [@jgc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jgc)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/97 "2023-09-29T15:34:48Z")
“the numerical designation of the ISO always references the date it was introduced, in this case 8/6/01.” That makes no sense, if two ISO standards come down on the same day they would have the same identification! Besides that standard could only be released in the first 9 months and 9 days of a year. It’s as bad as using mm-dd-yy ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/98 "2023-09-29T15:55:42Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > It never struck me as implying there’s only one, because we in the US have the exact construction in “He went to college/school/high school.” Why we don’t with “university” is some quirk of US English, I guess. > [@Sunspace](#): > > I suspect that this has something to do with “college” being the default term for tertiary education in the US. Yes, I’ve never heard someone in the US say “university” in phrases like " when I was in \_\_\_\_\_\_" or “my daughter is starting \_\_\_\_\_\_ in the fall” . It’s not that we don’t use “at university” or “in university” - it’s that we don’t use “university” at all in certain constructions. My tertiary education was at a college that is part of a university. I might say I attended Full Name of University but I worked to pay my tuition while I was in college, not while I was in university. ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/99 "2023-09-29T16:07:42Z")
> [@jgc](#): > > “the numerical designation of the ISO always references the date it was introduced, in this case 8/6/01.” > > That makes no sense Based on > [@Riemann](#): > > (I’ll get me coat.) I’m pretty sure Riemann was making a joke (gosh, I sure hope so!) ---
**Author:** ![jgc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6a8cbe/32.png) [@jgc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jgc)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-case-where-mm-dd-yy-dating-has-cost-money/990594/100 "2023-09-29T16:56:44Z")
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