How do you write dates?

[cultcross]

It always makes more sense to start with the context, ie: the month before the date that it's in. Otherwise that number could be anything.

I have no idea what you mean by 'context' here. If you see a number in the format 11/11/1111, you see 'date' straight away, no?

Smallest unit/next largest/largest

Keeping it in some kind of sequence seems logical to me. Just as we do (the other way around) with decimal time, it is hour:minute:second, not minute:second:hour.

 

[MacLeod]

Largest to smallest can work just as well . ie YY-MM-DD, But i'll take smallest to largerst DD-MM-YY as well

 

[Miss Chicken]

Agreed.

I cannot see any logical reason for the American way of writing dates as it is neither smallest to largest, nor largest to smallest.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Posted by Rarewolf:

I write how I talk.

My condolences to anyone you have a conversation with.

Agreed.

I cannot see any logical reason for the American way of writing dates as it is neither smallest to largest, nor largest to smallest.

That's because most people here say "January 3rd [third]," instead of "Third of January."

 

[Miss Chicken]

But which came first - so you say January 3rd because that is how you write the date, or vice versa?

 

[MacLeod]

^Good question, and I've yet to see an explanation of why it's the Fourth of July and not July Fourth.

 

[24thcenstfan]

Usually the first or the fifth option.

 

[Lord Garth]

1/23/12

For the year: 30-99 = 1930-1999. 00-29 = 2000-2029. Otherwise, I use four digits.

 

[Gryffindorian]

But which came first - so you say January 3rd because that is how you write the date, or vice versa?

It doesn't matter; it could be either way. It's faster for people to say "December First" (with fewer syllables) than "First of December."

^Good question, and I've yet to see an explanation of why it's the Fourth of July and not July Fourth.

No idea. But again, it's inconsequential to how Americans (typically) write today's date. I imagine saying "Fourth of July" is more of a tradition than anything else.

 

[scotpens]

I know America refers to it as Military time, but I've never heard it referred to that way in the UK. But then again I suspect in countries where 24hr time is more common there is no need to differentiate it.

I live in America and don't call it "military time." I just call it "time."

You’re the exception, then. For most Americans, if we see the time written as “16:00” rather than “4:00 P.M,” we assume it’s in a military context.

 

[Roger Wilco]

It always makes more sense to start with the context, ie: the month before the date that it's in. Otherwise that number could be anything.

Nonsense. It's convention in the USA to order dates that way and therefore is more easily understandable to Americans, but it doesn't make more sense.

With that argument the order should be year-month-day.

eta: just saw that I was slow with this comment, sorry.

 

[MacLeod]

But which came first - so you say January 3rd because that is how you write the date, or vice versa?

It doesn't matter; it could be either way. It's faster for people to say "December First" (with fewer syllables) than "First of December."

^Good question, and I've yet to see an explanation of why it's the Fourth of July and not July Fourth.

No idea. But again, it's inconsequential to how Americans (typically) write today's date. I imagine saying "Fourth of July" is more of a tradition than anything else.

Though when speaking in general conversation you are referring to either the current month or the following month. So it would just be I'll see you on the 26th. Unless you are discussing a birthday/anniversary etc..

 

[iguana_tonante]

It always makes more sense to start with the context, ie: the month before the date that it's in. Otherwise that number could be anything.

That's one of the stupidest things I've ever read.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I think the month-first notation used in the US only makes any sense because it's similar to how you'd read it aloud:

1/25/2012 - January 25, 2012.

I don't think "context" has much to do with it.

The programmer in me finds the CCYYMMDD notation the easiest to work with on account of its inherent logic and sortability, though.

 

[MacLeod]

Yes, but most other countries read the date out loud as the 25th of January. So somewhere in the past there must have been a divergence.

 

[Mysterion]

DD/MM/YY

 

[Gryffindorian]

Yes, but most other countries read the date out loud as the 25th of January. So somewhere in the past there must have been a divergence.

Yes, the key phrase here is "most other countries." But here in the U.S. when you read newspapers, magazines, other publications, the format is usually Month, Date, Year. Even in everyday conversations, I hear most people say something like, "Our next meeting will be on February 26th," not "the 26th of February."

 

[RoJoHen]

That kind of stuff is always very interesting to me. One wonders what happened that caused such a random change. Did we Americans do it just to be rebellious?

 

[MacLeod]

^you never now it might be the other way around. And the rest of the English speaking world changed to the DD-MM style.

Numerically it can cetainly lead to confusion.

Though in the past in groups I've been on the internet we tended to use DD-MM format and the 24hr clock format. Which was decided upon by vote.

 

[Bisz]

YYYY-MM-DD

At work we date a lot of files, and this way they auto sort by date when you sort by name, so the newest version of the file is always at the top (or bottom).

There is also no ambiguity about which digits are the year, which are the month and which are the day.