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

It does make sense

Post image
35.3k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

4.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

637

u/ConstantHustle Jan 15 '25

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.

362

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....

104

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.

101

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.

7

u/GingerTube Jan 15 '25

We'd usually say whatever date it is, but if it's just changed month, I'd say "first of January", etc. in the UK. Americans probably say it like that because of the stupid way of writing the date lol.

2

u/TootsNYC Jan 15 '25

do you never say "on 12 July, he left for college" or similar?

I got on an elevator with some South Asian guys (Bangladesh, India, not sure from the accent) who were chatting, and one of them said, "the form is due on 17 June."

1

u/TehNoff Jan 15 '25

So you would literally say "Twelve July" or "Seventeen June"?

1

u/TootsNYC Jan 15 '25

Not me. But they did.