Why do North Americans write dates the wrong way around?

[MotF Bane]

OP writes dates the wrong way.

 

[theflyingpig]

i do it navy style

Military format is the best format, nothing else can compare. 210302ZNOV09 Everyone knows this.

 

[nonameo]

I write it as year + #/365

 

[CPA]

did you ever think the rest of the world is wrong.

I just don't get it, why do we feel so much guilt in what we do? why are we always wanting to emulate Europe?

 

[sivart]

I always type the date 21-NOV-2009 at work, especially important before the 12th day of the month. We have offices in the US, Canada, Netherlands, China, and Japan. Just avoids all confusion since everyone does know English

Now, when it comes to our database (Oracle), it seems that each form wants the date in a different format.

It's the dang people in Europe that want something done by week 43, 2009...when the hell is that?

 

[Crono]

did you ever think the rest of the world is wrong.

I just don't get it, why do we feel so much guilt in what we do? why are we always wanting to emulate Europe?

Who's "we"? The OP, who is from New Zealand?

 

[CPA]

Cuz we're America, the greatest country in the world, and the planet.

And the Earth, don't forget the Earth.

 

[CPA]

Who's "we"? The OP, who is from New Zealand?

Why do we Americans always want to emulate New Zealand?

 

[Anubis]

Its how we talk.

We say "March 10th, 2009", not "the 10th of March, 2009".

this

 

[Newbian]

Why do we Americans always want to emulate New Zealand?

Because sheep love is a good thing?

 

[BabaBooey]

Because I can.

 

[Toonces]

Screw all of you who think the year is 2009. It's 21平成.

二十一平成十一霜月二十二日

Haha, so much easier:awe:

 

[destrekor]

I am an American, and am used to our date format. But I would still say it is a terrible way to format a date. Why is the least significant part of the date in the middle? It makes no sense at all. And of course many people drop the second comma in sentences like "On November 18, 2009, I took out the trash.", which then grates on me because I am a grammar Nazi.

In any event, yes, ISO-style dates are clearly superior. As an extra bonus, they are more portable across languages than dates that spell out the month (and of course if you use a number for the months, in other dates formats it is ambiguous which part of the date is the day and which the month, unless one is greater than 12... ugh).



This format is decent enough if you use a 4-digit year (because 2-digit years are stupid) and one that I sometimes use (although, as stated above, it fails hard if the reader doesn't speak your language).

However, its bastard child the DOD date-time group is just ridiculous. The time is integrated into the day component for some reason, with no punctuation at all to make clear what is happening. I am convinced that the DTG format was invented as some sort of horrible joke. On the plus side, it does concisely provide the time zone.

The DTG is not meant to be used as a casual date notation.
It's for anything that needs coordination and specification, any kind of large event organized by people from all other, military activity, and other things. That's also why they include Zulu-time (UTC). Handy for anything that needs to begin to end specifically at a certain time on a certain date, and easy to write short and concise.
Do this NLT 221200ZNOV2009. Easy to see means complete actions prior to 1200UTC, November 22, 2009. Of which would be 0700 here in Ohio (when Standard Time is being used, 0800 when DST is in effect).

 

[tboo]

Because we can

 

[SacrosanctFiend]

二十一平成十一霜月二十二日

haha, so much easier:awe:

lmao! :awe:

2009年11月21日 is fairly simple...

 

[KillerCharlie]

You're one of those smug people that think if Europe or this country or that country does it, then it's superior. You're wrong.

It's completely arbitrary, but there is an international standard: ISO 8601, which is in the form yyyy-mm-dd. Hey look, you write the date incorrectly too!

 

[SagaLore]

I prefer 1258802460.

 

[sandorski]

I don't know why dude, but I fucking hate it. We don't just use mm/dd/yyyy though. Sometimes we use dd/mm/yyyy, which makes it even worse because you can mess up shit by using the wrong convention.

I think dd/mm/yyyy should be the standard. It makes the most logical sense.

OK, sure when speaking we state Month first, but that's a piss poor reason to use Month first in a completely Numerical fashion. The main reasons that is, also happens to be the same reasons that putting Year first is assbackwards. Those are:

1) We read Right---to----Left
2) When viewing a Date we are most likely to be wanting the Day, somewhat less the Month, and most often Assume what the Year is. The most important Information should be at the Start, least important at the End

 

[ViviTheMage]

we will change the world slowly!

 

[Born2bwire]

Because Americans do not have some inferiority complex that comes from being a colonial. When you finally get the balls to overthrow your subjucated rule to England maybe then you'll also realize the superiority of doing things the way Americans do. Until then you can just keep bowing to the Queenie pretty as you please and using some backwater dating system.

 

[sao123]

you're all wrong...
today is star date 63270.9

 

[Gothgar]

OH my GOD YOU NEVER MAKE THREADS ABOUT HOW MUCH MORE AWESOME YOUR COUNTRY IS THAN THE US

 

[Chaotic42]

Your way is wrong too. CCYY-MM-DD is the way to go.

 

[sdifox]

In spanish it's day month year.

I don't care how you say it, I just want the fucking date to be written as yyyy mm dd
That is the only format where there is no confusion.

 

[KentState]

Why are non-North Americans so curious about why we are not exactly like them?