Choose an option from the poll.
You forgot CE/BCE.
Sometimes I have to sort dates, so I’ve gotten into the habit of writing them “year, month, day.” So today would be 20111231. This is, of course, for my own use, since most people would have trouble deciphering it.
Whenever possible, I use a format defined in ISO 8601.
Other - you missed Day/Month/Year, which is how (most?) people in Europe write the date.
(Though I would use AD/BC, if referring to historical dates. Maybe I should have selected that option too.)
yyyymmdd for sorting - this is how I label photos so they’re always in order.
For general use, dd/mm/yyyy.
It depends on language being spoken, amount of information being conveyed and context; the rule of thumb is “whatever I am required to do or believe will convey the information best”. AC/DC (in Spanish those acronyms are not about electricity, they stand for “antes de Cristo/después de Cristo”, literally meaning “before Christ/after Christ”… I’m sure the band members would get a kick out of it); BC/AD; (day of the week) day (month); (day of the week) (month) day; year, month, day (day of the week)…
Sometimes the context/amount of information is given implicitly (so far I haven’t run into anybody stupid or sleepy enough to ask whether my graduation date was BC or AD; on the other hand, when I give a date more than 50 years away it’s likely only the year), sometimes it’s required by the company for which I’m writing. I’ve had at least two customers which wanted every document dated in two separate languages, one formatted YMD day of week and the other one day of week, day (of/,) month, year.
Day/Month/Year AD/BC
I do this all the time when naming documents at work, so that they’ll sort in alphabetical order.
day / month / year
dd-mmm-yyyy
Day/month/year.
I don’t usually deal with BC dates.
Day/month/year.
I’m fairly sure it’s only Americans that do it backwards. Does anywhere else on Earth do it the US way?
As it’s evening in the Antipodes, I’m sure you will be getting a lot of “other,” namely dd/mm/(yy)yy.
I use zero and negative years. 0 CE == 1 BCE. -1 CE == 2 BCE, etc. Eliminates the ridiculous discontinuity at year 0.
As for dates, yyyy/mm/dd, of course. mm/dd if the year is contextually obvious.
As BoMW noted, yyyy/mm/dd is the only usable format, and is defined by ISO 8601. It sorts correctly because the digits are sorted in decreasing significance–just like every other number.
As it happens, it matches the American system slightly better than the Euro one–it is the same if you leave the year off. No subset of the Euro format matches any sensible system.
For me, it’s dd month yyyy by default. (For example, I’d write today’s date as 1 January 2012.) I’d add AD or BC if I was referring to some historical event where I felt the clarification was necessary. And I’d use yyyymmdd format if I was sorting things on a computer and wanted to get them in chronological order.
Christ? Wasn’t he crucified and buried? Oh… placed in a cave with a rock for a door. He was dead, though, right? Oh, I see, you’re not sure. So, usually, burying pretty much means he’s dead, right? Oh I see, the cave was there and nobody was looking. Well, I agree if your crew was out all night drinking and didn’t feel like digging a hole… Well, to just throw the guy in a cave… We’ll be hearing a lot about this! What if someone lives in that cave!? You’re not sure?!
Mostly 01/01/2012 and 201201 for many historical extracts from Oracle DBs.
First of all, I’m Australian, and that’s a very long way from Europe.
Now, when I do need to put the date is numerical order, I do it backwards: yesterday was 111231
Doing it the way everywhere except the USA does it, it’s the exact reverse: yesterday was is 31/12/11. That is the sensible way of doing it. The US version only “matches” the numerical-order way if you leave a third of the date out, as you say yourself.
What’s today’s date? Today is the first of January, 2012. Smallest to largest. Starting with the middle, then going to the smallest, and then the largest? That’s your idea of sensible?