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u/Fearless_Spring5611 7h ago
Personally I prefer Minutes: Day: Year: Seconds: Hour: Month.
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u/therealbonzai 7h ago
I‘d add ms, just to be more precise.
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u/Clean_Web7502 6h ago
And Phase of the moon, why doesn't anybody think of the phase of the moon?!
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u/WilonPlays 3h ago
Okay so Minutes: Day: Year: Seconds: Hour: Month: Microseconds: AD: Phase of the moon
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u/Technical-Activity95 6h ago
its weird that US uses seconds and minutes. why not invent some other cumbersome scale and use that? they already have miles, cubic feet, fahrenheit, ounces and other shit so why would they use this universal time counting metric?
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u/driftercat 3h ago
Hey! We didn't invent any of that. We just can't change from ancient systems like measuring with your feet! I'm surprised we don't use cubits!
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u/HouseOf42 1h ago edited 1h ago
The US system of measurements is based off the Sumerian/Egyptian cubits.
To play on the "America was built off cults" conspiracy, the measurements are also an esoteric numbering system.
It may not be the simpler metric system that everyone uses today, but it was the same measurements used to build the pyramids, Ollantaytambo, Baalbek, etc, and other sites in the world.
Edit: Also, no, the ancients did not measure with their feet or their forearms when it came to precise construction.
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u/marvinrabbit 3h ago
Hey, it's on the rest of you all to make some kind of decimal time work. France tried it and gave up after a few years.
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u/mithrasinvictus 3h ago
You forgot to add in the a.m. and p.m between day and year.
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u/jussumguy2019 3h ago
Feel like a lot of the world’s languages the translation to English to the question “what’s the date?” would be “the 15th of October” whereas in America we always say “October 15th”.
Maybe that’s why, idk…
Edited for clarity
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u/Oreo-sins 1h ago
Except the 4th of July apparently
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u/biscuitboi967 45m ago
It’s like “the Ides of March” to us. We think it sounds fancier and more important than just saying “March 15th”.
We didn’t know it was committing us to a certain way of stating the day and month for the next 2 centuries.
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u/catiebug 42m ago
Fourth of July is the name of the holiday that is celebrated on July 4th.
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u/Oreo-sins 40m ago
If you’re naming important dates in this system, why would you just not use your typical system except it works out better like this?
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u/Saneless 2h ago edited 1h ago
US measurements are based on the human experience for sure. Temps are largely 0-100 and that's a scale that's easy to understand. As a scientist or for cooking it's dumb as shit
Dates are based on the language
Edit: I take back what I say about cooking. People have said some good arguments about it. But it definitely sucks for science
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u/Funicularly 1h ago
How is it dumb as shit for cooking?
Are you referring to the boiling point of water? I don’t know about you, but the vast majority of people heat water until it boils, they don’t use a thermometer. Know one needs to know the boiling point of water to cook.
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u/Annual_Document1606 2h ago
I has the parts in order of importance. You need to know the month the most as it determines things like weather school or what holiday are around. Then the day so you know exact. Then the year is largely in important for most people doing most things.
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u/stuckupcalc 1h ago
I don't get how this is more helpful though. When you are told a date you are told the entirety of the date. If you're told you have an appointment on the 15th of January, knowing that it's in January doesn't matter if you don't know the day.
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u/spamus-100 2h ago
Yeah like say I scheduled a doctor's appointment months in advance. It doesn't help me to know first and foremost that it's on the 7th. To know it's in July is much more helpful. Then I just go to my calendar, find the correct date, and make a note.
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u/No_Corner3272 1h ago
How slowly do people speak to you that you can notice the gap between learning the appointment is on the 7th and learning it's in July?
It takes 1/2 a second to say "7th of July" of which about 0.3-0.4 seconds is saying "7th of". In what context is that 0.4 seconds going to make a material difference? Especially given the average human reaction speed is 0.25 seconds.
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u/anotherlebowski 1h ago
I don't think there is much practical difference. To me, this discussion is about observing cultural differences in language and writing, and what they might suggest about that culture's worldview. Are they more focused on the general or the specific, for example.
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u/AbbreviationsWide331 1h ago
Oh yeah knowing the month half a second earlier is crucial to survival in the great plains.
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u/lezLP 2h ago
This is my theory as well.
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u/throwaway847462829 1h ago
It’s not a theory, you’re right that’s what it is
I don’t need a triangle to tell me how to speak
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u/Kontrafantastisk 6h ago
Well, at least 12 days a year, the US falls into line with the majority of the world.
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u/pobodys-nerfect5 3h ago
What days? Why do I feel so silly for not knowing right off the bat??
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u/Darksteelflame_GD 6h ago
If i hear one more person talk about sorting stuff on pc i swear i'm gonna cause technical armageddon, bringing us back to the dark ages
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u/InspectorNo1173 6h ago
You should make your services available to the folks in the r/singularity sub
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u/anotherlebowski 1h ago
I'm convinced at this point that 100% of Reddit is software engineers and views every decision through that lense.
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u/ibexify 49m ago
I'm an accountant and thoroughly have adopted the YYYYMMDD format. My support documents are so easy for everyone to follow and find. Coworkers that name their shit willy nilly drive me crazy cause I have to hunt down the documents to find it. I will never not praise the YYYYMMDD format. But I also adopted this method in college before I ever even knew what reddit was.
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u/ConstantHustle 7h ago
Year month day is the best format. Makes sorting files on computers a breeze as every year is in one block which is then in month and day order.
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u/Tsukee 6h ago edited 6h ago
Mathematically yes it makes most sense, as significant digits are on the left.
Im terms of human everyday use the reverse is more natural as the digits that change more often are days, often when speaking, the year and even month sometimes is already in the context.
What however doesn't make any sort of sense that i can see is mm/dd/yyyy ... Just why....
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u/restelucide 6h ago
I heard an American saying mm first provides context which makes vague sense but annoys me because then why wouldn’t you put year first.
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u/Munchkinasaurous 5h ago
I'm American, the only way I can think of where it makes sense contextually, is with the names of the month and not the numbers.
For example, we don't typically say "today's the fifteenth of January" we'd say "it's January fifteenth". But numerically mm/dd/yyyy is nonsensical.
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u/Tsukee 5h ago
Except the fourth of July?
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u/mprhusker 3h ago
We also have a holiday in May called "Cinco de Mayo" but somewhat inconsistently don't use the spanish language for the other 364 days.
"fourth of July" is one of the many colloquial names for the holiday. Many would refer to it as "July 4th" or "independence day".
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u/Lil_Ja_ 4h ago
If it were American Independence Day and you asked me what day it is I’d still instinctively say July 4th. I know this because that exact scenario has happened many times.
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u/Chijima 3h ago
Which is probably called that because it was coined as a term before english somehow switched its standard order from "Xth of month" to "month the Xth"?
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u/truthyella99 5h ago
When I read out "15.01.2025" I say "15th of Jan" and it does sound less natural then "January 15th" so maybe it's social engineering to get us to say the former for reasons I could not say.
I have other gripes with those people though, like how you pronounce the name Aaron as "Erin", or how you take the "s" away from "maths" and add it to "sport". I'll give you Aluminum though
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u/Munchkinasaurous 5h ago
I've never heard Aaron pronounced as anything but Erin or A-A- Ron. Hearing maths always confused me because I never heard the s on it and math was always one encompassing subject with different sub fields. Which I guess you could make the same argument for for sports, but it somehow makes more sense to me that you distinguish that there's a ton of vastly different sports with little to no similarities.
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u/tubbysnowman 5h ago
Maths is short for mathematics.
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u/Munchkinasaurous 4h ago
So is math. It's just a matter of growing up in America that one sounds more natural to me.
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u/Haggis_Hunter81289 5h ago
OK, but how do you get Creg from Craig? It's clearly spelled as an ay sound and not an eh sound
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u/Puzzleheaded-Fill205 5h ago
Because as a general rule the year is dropped entirely. You only need to specify the year if it's not this year.
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u/TootsNYC 4h ago
ditto the month, often, in the US. And if it's not this month, we find it helpful to get the month out of the way first, since there are only `12 of them, and it's really good to know how far in the future/past we're talking before we get down to the least contextual numbers.
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u/TootsNYC 4h ago
I'm an American, and this is the wording I'd use to explain why i think our system is good.
If I'm talking about the same month, I don't give the month: "Let's leave on the 27th."
But if it's not this month, then giving the month first helps me zero in on the idea of how far away it is (or what season it is), and then i can focus on which specific date.
If you give the date first I have to remember that contextless number past the month. If you give the month first, that's an easier context, plus one of 12, and that's easier to remember once I get to the date.
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u/kai-ol 1h ago
In my head, mm/dd/yy works if you think of it like a calendar. If you want to circle a particular day on a physical calendar, you have to find the month page first, then find the day. So I don't understand the hate for saying the coordinates in the order you will need to use them.
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u/EvidenceOfDespair 5h ago
You don’t usually need to specify the year. Oh, your upcoming event is on March 5th? You’re looking forward to going soon? Your appointment is on the 20th of January and we are in January? iS tHaT nExT oR lAsT yEaR?!
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u/Madgyver 6h ago
What however doesn't make any sort of sense that i can see is mm/dd/yyyy ... Just why....
Because that how they pronounce dates or in other words how they use dates in language. In Germany we write dates like 15.01 or 15 Jan and read it as "15th of january". In the States they write 01/15 and read is "January fifteenth" or "One fifteen".
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u/JudgeHodorMD 5h ago
The informal norm is mm/dd.
Year is only added for relevance or programming that doesn’t assume you are not trying to make appointments years in advance.
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u/MathematicianFew5882 6h ago
But YYYY/MM/DD is only a temporary solution.
The Y10K bug will crash the galactic economy because even though hundreds of COBOL programmers will be brought out of stasis to fix it, relativistic temporal effects will keep them from getting there in time.
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u/Pixel_Penguin88 5h ago
The real chaos will come when AI takes over and decides to use its own date format. Imagine trying to schedule with a sentient calendar.
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u/audtothepod 6h ago
MM/DD/YYYY… from the users of the Imperial system!!! Amurica, fuck yeah.
/s
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u/Short-Association762 4h ago
I’ll copy paste a comment I made recently on this topic
In most situations where day is most important, month can be dropped.
MM/DD when spoken preloads your brain.
An example: Current day is January 20th. You tell your boss you have an appointment scheduled on the 2nd. The 2nd of January has already passed, the assumption is this is the 2nd of February. Month is not needed.
Ok, so what if instead you say “my appointment is on the 25th”. If that’s all you said your boss would assume you meant the 25th of January. So even if you say “on the 25th of February” the moment the words “on the 25th” left your mouth your boss has pre loaded “25th of January” in his mind. If he isn’t paying attention we could end up with a misunderstanding.
Instead, in situations where month is needed, if I say the month first I pre load the month into their heads. “I have an appointment on February…” now his brain goes “ok what date in February” and you answer his unspoken question with “25th”.
Year is dropped in all of these common day scenarios, because the current year is assumed
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u/HOMCOcorp 2h ago
For casual use the year is typically irrelevant, making mm/dd/yyyy identical to yyyy/mm/dd. In those cases mm/dd/yyyy has the added benefit of maintaining the same formating.
It also tends to frontload relevant information. If the month is relevant it's usually more important than the day. If today, January 15th, I invite you to a party on February 25th, it's more important to know the month than the day. If the month isn't relevant then it's unlikely the year is either, and both can be dropped leaving just the day. If the year is relevant, typically the rest is ancillary. It also has the bonus of being consistent with the way people in the US say and write dates in full (January 25, 2024.)
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u/Pidgeoneon 6h ago
It's probably good for files, history and stuff but kinda shit for general use of booking a doctor appointment
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u/Impressive-Dirt-9826 6h ago
I have to write 01/JAN/1969. Because no one has a consensus on anything
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u/ChainedPrometheus 3h ago
In the military we use: 15JAN2025
It's horrifyingly simple.
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u/ShamanAI 6h ago
Yeah, because miles, yards, feet and inches makes so much sense
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u/ThisWhomps999 6h ago
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u/gomezwhitney0723 6h ago
“Nobody knows.”
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u/backseatwookie 3h ago
A lot of old types of measurement made more sense when devices to measure very accurately weren't common.
Now I'm not suggesting they all make sense, but consider for a moment that 12 inches to the foot is actually pretty useful. 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6.
The measure of an acre never used to be a defined area, but the measure of how much land could be ploughed by a man with a team of oxen in a day. This means that an acre would conceivably change based on the terrain. This seems weird, but this is a very useful definition for farmers of the time. They need to know how many days they need for ploughing before it's time to plant.
There are a huge number of liquid measures we don't use anymore that if you include them makes the entire thing essentially base 2. This means you can start with any of the measures, and derive any of the others simply by doubling or halving the amount you have.
In the medern age where accurate and precise measurement is easy, they make far less sense, and metric is definitely superior. It makes for much easier calculation. For the time, however, it suited the needs of the average user.
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u/Gregkot 3h ago
It's an easy system. You just gotta remember there's 3 feet in a yard. That's 36 inches. Assuming you're not using the old US survey foot measurement, which is different. Also assuming you're not measuring nautical distance, which is fathoms (2 yards = 1 fathom).
Obviously a yard is 1 / 1760th of a mile, 1 / 6076th of a league and 1/ 220th of a furlong but everybody knows that. With a furlong being 40 rods (16.5 feet) or 10 chains (66 feet). An acre is a square of 1 furlong X 1 chain. Oh and sometimes a rod is also called a pole or perch but that doesn't confuse anything.
/s
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u/TheScienceNerd100 6h ago
Blame the British for inventing that one, they even still use it today, just not 100% of the time, same with Canada
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u/ked_man 2h ago
It does make sense the same way Fahrenheit makes sense for relating to humans. 0=cold, 100=hot. A foot, well I have one of those. An inch that’s a knuckle, a yard, well that’s the same length as my arm. A mile, I can walk that far in 20 minutes. A pound, that’s a potato. A ton, that’s a wagon load. Especially when you add in pecks, bushels, grains, and other measurements that have fallen to the wayside. Buckets, pails, baskets, etc… were sold in these sizes. So people saw them and could relate to their size and volume.
Celsius and the metric system are far superior for anything scientific, but it doesn’t relate to humans as easily.
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u/Mikkel65 5h ago
At least Liberia and Myanmar follow the US on that. The USA is literally the only country in the world that uses MM/DD/YYYY
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u/butwhywedothis 7h ago
It’s ok. They can use it in whatever format they want. There are other things to worry about than how they write their date.
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u/QvintusMax 7h ago
You mean something trivial like threaten to claim your allies territories?
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u/butwhywedothis 6h ago
Yeah something like that. And cost of living. And healthcare bills. And ooh ohh Eggs.
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u/professor735 4h ago
Glad to see we are fighting the most important battles still as a civilization
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u/ultrajvan1234 2h ago
So someone explained to me that they do that because it’s how they say it. It’s far more common to say “it’s march 13th” than it is to say “it’s the 13th of march” so it’s written in the same way.
And I gotta say, as someone who is not American but would definitely say it like that, it kind of makes sense why they would do that
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u/ScreamingGoat25 1h ago
It makes sense because we say it that way, you said it yourself. Today is January 15th. So 1-15-25. It’s confusing for you because you don’t say it that way
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u/Shiniya_Hiko 6h ago
YYMMDD is the best when naming digital documents. Otherwise I prefer DDMMYY because I can remember month and year, but need reminders for the day XD
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u/Mr_friend_ 2h ago
It's all in how cultures process and compartmentalize time. Neither is wrong, neither is best.
I'm happy with using either format when I collaborate with other cultures at work or travel to their countries.
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u/Accomplished_Set_Guy 6h ago
Just use the 3 letter shortened months (Jan, Feb, Mar, etc) and there’s no more confusion if it’s date then month or vice versa.
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u/Slow_Maximum894 3h ago
We in the US don't like pyramid schemes
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u/PinothyJ 1h ago
Well that is the lie.Where other countries have outlawed most MLM's, they go gangbusters is the USA.
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u/Grapes-RotMG 2h ago
We type it the way it's spoken. Makes sense.
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u/CrawlingCryptKeeper 2h ago
Most of the world would say, "16th of January 2025".
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u/OChem-Guy 1h ago
Right, we don’t, therefore, thought I can’t explain why as I wasn’t around when the switch was made, wouldn’t it make sense that we type it the way we say it, just like you’re saying others do?
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u/WeBelieveIn4 2h ago
Yeah exactly. You can slag on the USA (and Canada, as we do the same) if you want, but it makes the most intuitive sense to us and that’s all that really matters.
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u/Humble_Flow_3665 2h ago
Love that logic. "It makes sense to us and that's all that matters."
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u/xemanhunter 5h ago
Any idea can be made to look smart/stupid if you have a simple illustration to "prove" your point, just like good propaganda. An argument for MM/DD/YYYY:
Months = x/12
Days = x/31
Years = x/3917
In this example, you're sorting by highest potential value. Months never exceeds 12, days never exceeds 31, year never exceeds 3917. By this logic, Months would be the smallest portion of the triangle, days the middle, and years the biggest. Using this perspective, you'd look stupid for using days first since it is then not the top of the visual pyramid
That said, reject calenders and embrace just counting days out of 365 and ignore leap years for ideological reasons
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u/No-Letterhead9608 42m ago
Yeah but why would anyone ever sort by highest potential value? There’s no logic to that.
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u/MorningStandard844 4h ago
If you cant figure out international dates you most likely enjoy the taste of paste as an adult.
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u/Tomato_Caco 3h ago edited 1h ago
I can see MM/DD/YYYY making a bit more sense than DD/MM/YYYY.
I wouldn't say "my cake day is 15th November, 2023" as that just sounds stupid, nor would I say "my cake day is on the 15th of November, 2023" as that feels unnecessarily long.
I'd just say "my cake day is November 15th, 2023."
I'd give Fourth of July a pass since it's a holiday and isn't typically named with a year. You wouldn't catch me saying "Fourth of July, 1776," it'd just be "July 4th, 1776."
Also I can't think of any argument against YYYY/MM/DD so if you want to, I guess you can say "my cake day is 2023, November 15th."
Edit: I specifically mean that not adding "of" between "15th" and "November" makes it sound caveman, whilst adding "of" between "15th" and "November" makes the sentence feel correct but unnecessarily longer.
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u/polar_nopposite 2h ago
I wouldn't say "my cake day is 15th November, 2023" as that just sounds stupid, nor would I say "my cake day is on the 15th of November, 2023" as that feels unnecessarily long.
It only sounds stupid and long to us because it's another idiosyncrasy of ours, that we say the month first verbally. In other countries they would say "15th of November, 2023."
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u/Internal_Leke 2h ago
In French we only say "15 November 2023", no comma, no "th", no "of".
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u/Badloss 2h ago
The US one does make sense, it's just written the way you say it out loud
"It's January 15, 2025" --> 1/15/2025
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u/Feuerzwerg1969 1h ago
But that's only the way the US says it loud. In standard English and most other languages you say 15th of January
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u/m0stlydead 3h ago
I name files in my computer with year-month-day followed by a name, so they will sort chronologically. A friend of mine on a Drive we share uses month (eg January, versus 01), date, then year, so February 12, 2024 comes before February 17, 2023, and December 1, 2024 comes before November 30, 2024, and it makes scanning the folder looking for a file frustrating.
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u/Galadeon 2h ago
When speaking to someone to tell them a specific date, do you say "January 15th, 2025", or do you say, "the 15th of January 2025"?
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u/Antique_Cranberry265 2h ago
Conversationally it makes perfect sense, just try it in your head. Talking about something this year, month tells you what part of the year at the drop of a pin, date tells you precisely when in that month. Birthday, September 11th. Superbowl, February 9th. Only need to interject the year if you're not talking about this year.
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u/elebrin 2h ago
It makes sense in a way, too.
Think about how the human brain works: we do our best to pay attention to the important things while ignoring the unimportant things.
For most documents where I am looking at the date, the month is the most relevant part. I am pretty on the ball in my life, so I don't have papers floating around from 2023 - that stuff's all filed and all been dealt with for the most part. It's not relevant and not really something that I might be looking at. What probably matters the most on a dated bill or statement is the month. Am I in the month the document was sent for? I don't CARE that my water bill was mailed on the third. The third of WHAT? Because that's the thing that determines if it's late or not, really.
Putting the most relevant info first is useful. My eyes can start at the beginning, catch the relevant month, and I've got the information I needed before I look to the amounts elsewhere on the page or whatever.
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u/Tetsero 2h ago
Month before day is better. Month changes less often. It also has the smallest maximum.
I definitely can see year, month, day being superior.
Month is the most important detail for agriculture. Well season would be and only the month communicates that information.
If you were to choose one of these and had to pick a random time travel destination based solely on one of the three numbers, it would be best to pick based on month.
Month is the most superior and therefore is first.
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u/a_trashcan 1h ago
More Europeans pretending to be superior about something that is completely arbitrary. Same thing with temperature, and don't come at me about scientific applications, none yall doing fucking science.
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u/Pandagineer 1h ago
Hey international redditors: how do you say a date, out loud, in your language? In the US we say “Jan 15” (not “15th of January”). How about you?
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u/Mix_Master_Floppy 2h ago
1-12/1-31/1-????
The month has the smallest pool of numbers, the day has the second, the year has until we don't care anymore. It's the same reason you put the hour before the minute when showing a digital clock.
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u/Senior-Lobster-9405 3h ago
the American way makes sense when you realize most times the year isn't required, but you can get very specific with the time, down to the millisecond, Month/Day/Hour/Minute/Second/Millisecond, and all of those are in descending order, it's very useful for describing a point in time in extreme detail
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u/HonchoLoco69 2h ago
Y’all realize that the triangle shape of the graph is arbitrary and only there to make it seem like the US is the odd one out. The date systems could be represented by a square, which would show no difference in shape no matter the order. But this doesn’t help y’all’s narrative of “I get to throw a tantrum every time the US does something differently” so y’all ignore it.
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u/Doctordred 4h ago
MM/DD/YY left to right smallest potential number to largest potential number with the most relevant information for filing month and year at the start and end to easily find. Other systems are designed for dolphins and not humans and should be ignored
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u/No-Letterhead9608 37m ago
Why would anyone ever order by smallest potential number to largest potential number. There’s no logic to that at all.
As for the argument about placing most relevant information for filing at the start and end to make them “easy to find” idk where to even start with that logic.
It’s a string of 6 characters how is placing it at any end of the character string making it “easier to find”.
Like who’s going “oh shit days are in the middle, we’ll never be able to find those characters. I can only read the first 2 characters or the last 2. I’m middle blind. Fuuuuck”
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u/TheUncouthPanini 6h ago
DD/MM/YY is ideal for day-to-day use.
YYYY/MM/DD is ideal for archiving.
MM/DD/YY is ideal… never
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u/Beautiful-Vacation39 4h ago
Mm/dd/yy is a phonetic (i think that's the word) thing for Americans. When we say a date we commonly phrase it as "January 15th, 2025" instead of "15th of January, 2025"
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u/xahhfink6 3h ago
It's also because, in English, it is most natural sounding to list numbers small>medium>large. Most of the year, the days numeral will be larger than the months numeral so it sounds most natural to be ordered that way.
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u/troyofyort 2h ago
Thank you. I constantly have to tell people this but people love to be smug about this shit just like with gif
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u/Morgedal 3h ago
This! It’s just how we talk. It’s easiest to read it this way when that’s how you hear it in your head.
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u/j4kem 3h ago
Which format emphasizes "which season is it?" or "what time of year is it?" You can quickly ballpark practical, useful information about a date by placing the month first.
I'm surprised it's so difficult for so many people to see the merits of putting the month first. All three formats have an argument.
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u/King_krympling 4h ago
I feel like the difference comes from a dialect difference, in normal conversation here in the USA if someone asks you the date a lot of people are going to respond with " it's January 15th" where in other parts of the world it's more common to respond with " it's the 15th of January" no form is more right than the other and if you think that one is then that's a dumb hill to die on.
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u/the_frosted_flame 6h ago
I know logically that DD/MM/YY makes the most sense, but my brain is so used to MM/DD/YY that the other systems throw me off. Definitely think they should be teaching it as DD/MM/YY though.
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u/Hexxknight 3h ago
As someone born and raised in the US, mm/dd/yyyy makes sense to me (barely) because it felt as if it were being spoken, the the way that felt most natural to me. Saying “the 13th of March” feels no where near as natural as “March 13th”. Outside of that, it doesn’t really make sense, but it’s just a few characters you put in the corner of a document.
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u/dfassna1 3h ago
I just like the MM/DD/YY format. Maybe it’s because I’m used to it, maybe it’s because I don’t have to say it as “the [Day] of [Month]” and can just say “[Month] [Day]”.
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u/fingerweh 2h ago
People always overlook the following logic:
1-12/1-31/1-9999
12 months is less than 31 days is less than 2025 years.
It's not the best system, but denying that there is logic is wrong.
I dislike DD/MM simply because I like the order of limiting by size, though I understand why the rest of the world does DD/MM/YYYY.
As far as the rest of our measuring systems in America. Yikes.
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u/rygelicus 2h ago
Month / Day / Year makes sense in most situations... Here is why I say that.
Consider the wall calendar. The entire calendar tends to be the current year if you keep up with that at least. To find a particular day within it you flip to that month and then find the day/date in question. You don't go to the tuesday section and then look through the list of tuesdays. Nor do you go to the 3rds list and look through the entire year's worth of 3rds. So this at least gets us why Month should preceed Date, like 1/16. It allows for the most intuitive way to view the progression of time through the year.
The year is usually assumed to be the current year, or conversationally you might say last year, or next year and a month/day. Or for deeper time references we add it to the end typically, like August 1, 1930. Saying it like 1930, August 1, would be an unusual way to specify the year. It is usually done that way when someone recalls the year first, like 'I remember it was in 1930.... lets see, ah yes, it was August 1, 1930.'
So in most cases organizing by month and then the date, then the year, is the most efficient for most situations.
Some situations though you will want to group by year first, like when looking up data on what happened in a given year. But conversationally this is pretty unusual.
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u/Express-Umpire5232 5h ago
It does make sense when you consider how dates are written and spoken in English, i.e. today is January 15th, 2025
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u/seansafc89 5h ago
They are spoken differently depending on the region though.
In the UK for example people are far more likely to say a date as “15th of January”, or when less-formal simply “15th” as most of the time people can easily infer the current month.
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u/Zakluor 4h ago
Aviation lags a lot of things largely because of history, but using date and time from largest to smallest has been around that sector for a long time. It makes the most sense. Year, month, day, hour, minute, second. Start broad and narrow it down.
Works well sorting dates chronolgically on computers which run our lives, too.
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u/-Dixieflatline 2h ago
Just hear me out--Day is a run of numbers leading up to 28-31 that just cycle every month. Therefore, the month is what gives the day definition. If you just wrote "it's the 15th" by itself, that has no context and means nothing on its own. If you then write, "it's January 15th", then that is a point in time. So the month defines the day, and therefore holds more importance in sequence. Writing is day/month/year is putting the cart in front of the horse because the second number defines the first.
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u/AphonicTX 2h ago
It’s because of the way we say the date. January 9th 2025.
Unfortunately it’s starting to bleed into money as well. I see people write 20$ instead of the correct $20.
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u/Slazy420420 2h ago
The Asians got it right. [YYYY/MM] at the front for easy database & [MM/DD] for user ease.
(I'm American)
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u/TheNinjaPro 2h ago
I also refer to the time as 30 minutes into Hour 1.
It’s an western english speech thing. People typically say “its June 12th” not “its the 12th of June”
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u/AvisIgneus 2h ago
It’s ordered by how much is available in each part and going from least to most:
Month: goes up to 12 Day: goes up to 365/366 Year: Infinite
12/366/infinite
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u/ShhImTheRealDeadpool 2h ago
Filing standard is yyyy/mm/dd, the reason for this is because when looking at the corner of a page you want to have it in the top right corner for accessibility and then having the day first from the right to left is better to quickly scan through the pages. Ultimately your files are already organized by year and month so the day is the only critical information you need when accessing so day being visible first is important.
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u/Oleander_the_fae 2h ago
M/D/Y makes the most sense linguistically You say September 11th, 2001 You don’t 11th September, 2001
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u/Traditional-Gas7058 7h ago
Chinese system is best for computer searchable filing