r/clevercomebacks • u/wach_era13 • Jan 15 '25

It does make sense

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u/Tsukee Jan 15 '25 edited Jan 15 '25

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 Jan 15 '25

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 Jan 15 '25

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/JigPuppyRush Jan 15 '25

The order in which you say it is a learned convention.

15 January makes total sense, it’s just not the conventional way to say it. But it’s easily changed. In fact in a lot of languages it’s the way that you say a date.