# Why do the US and Europe write numbers differently? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 7, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649 "2010-05-07T17:01:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/41 "2010-05-11T03:11:04Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > The Hungarians do. Their relevance ended in about 1918. You knew what I meant. ---
**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:** [May 11, 2010, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/42 "2010-05-11T03:11:13Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > The Hungarians do. So does the bank on my cheques. ---
**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:** [May 11, 2010, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/43 "2010-05-11T03:59:31Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Their relevance ended in about 1918. You knew what I meant. Actually, what I thought you meant was what you said. Excuse me for the factual correction. edit: Apparently, according to Wikipedia, China, Japan, Mongolia, and Iran use it as well. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/44 "2010-05-11T04:33:26Z")
The “Real world” I was referring to was the one you and I actually live and go about our daily lives in- ie, a Western, English speaking “Real World”. ---
**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:** [May 11, 2010, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/45 "2010-05-11T05:09:37Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > The “Real world” I was referring to was the one you and I actually live and go about our daily lives in- ie, a Western, English speaking “Real World”. You just happen to be right at the moment, but for most of my Straight Dope career, I was in the YYYY-MM-DD “real world.” Still, this is the Straight Dope, after all, and it’s a useful factual point, especially since it seems that, you know, the _largest nation on the planet_ uses Big Endian time format. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/46 "2010-05-11T12:42:47Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > The Hungarians do. They also put their family names first unlike the rest of Europe. And eels in their hovercrafts. I try to write out the month every time to make it less ambiguous, in MMDDYYYY. I’ve noticed that US Military people seem to write it as 11-MAY-2010, often in all caps. Personally, I’m still holding out until the French Revolutionary Calendar comes back into style. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/47 "2010-05-11T12:54:01Z")
> [@'\[Undecided](#): > > Adrian;12430617’]This is another thing that should be standardized already. > I’m willing to compromise: You Americans adopt the metric system, and we adopt your number style. (Or we could both use the SI style: spaces as separators with dot or comma used interchangeably.) > > On the date issue, I’d like to point out that 31.12.1999 makes more sense than 12/31/1999, because the order of the units is not mixed up. I’d like to switch to 1999/12/31, however, since that way you can better sort by date in computer programming. That would leave the abbreviated form in your style. > Padding the zeros is a must, in any case. > > Who’s with me? How about we leave the metric system out of it for now, and agree that you’re right on writing dates (date first or year first I don’t care, but the month should always be in the middle), but wrong on writing numbers (one period and possibly multiple commas per sentence; one period and possibly multiple commas per number.)? ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/48 "2010-05-11T13:19:22Z")
> [@SimonMoon5](#): > > On the other hand, 12/31/1999 makes better sense than 31.12.1999 when you’re trying to read it out loud since people typically will say, “December 31st, 1999” when reading this date rather than “the 31st day of December, 1999.” Yeah, that’s where I get weird again. I’d simply say, “on thirty-one December 1999, we were all hunkered down in our bomb shelters awaiting the worst.” ---
**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:** [May 11, 2010, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/49 "2010-05-11T13:30:37Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > If we are that worried about how the file system will sort dates in a filename, shouldn’t we also agree that the date fields should be separated by hyphens and not slashes? Slashes aren’t legal in Windows file names. That is how [ISO 8601](http://www.iso.org/iso/date_and_time_format), which standardizes the format for the exchange of dates and times, does it. The plain date format would have May 11, 2010, as 2010-05-11. I don’t know how well-implemented ISO 8601 is, but it seems to be pretty common across the internet and other computer-based applications. ---
**Author:** ![\_Undecided\_Adrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/eada6e/32.png) [@\_Undecided\_Adrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Undecided_Adrian)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/50 "2010-05-11T16:12:36Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > How about we leave the metric system out of it for now, and agree that you’re right on writing dates (date first or year first I don’t care, but the month should always be in the middle), but wrong on writing numbers (one period and possibly multiple commas per sentence; one period and possibly multiple commas per number.)? That’s what I said, didn’t I? I’m fine with changing to the US number style, it’s equally sensible to ours IMO. I’m even inclined to agree with your parenthesis, that the US style is marginally _more_ sensible. But perhaps I shouldn’t give that away so easily, if we need it as a bargaining chip for the metric system 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/51 "2010-05-11T19:56:53Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > That is how [ISO 8601](http://www.iso.org/iso/date_and_time_format), which standardizes the format for the exchange of dates and times, does it. The plain date format would have May 11, 2010, as 2010-05-11. I don’t know how well-implemented ISO 8601 is, but it seems to be pretty common across the internet and other computer-based applications. I looked at the 8601, but it still has an issue in that it uses the colon for the separator in the time, which is also illegal in a Windows filename. ---
**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:** [May 11, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649/52 "2010-05-11T20:23:43Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > I looked at the 8601, but it still has an issue in that it uses the colon for the separator in the time, which is also illegal in a Windows filename. I’m sure I’d seen a ‘packed’ version that had no dashes or colons as separators. Edit: yes, [here](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-us-and-europe-write-numbers-differently/538649.md?page=2)