4 ms·

Except for cases like the 4th of July, in which case it's suddenly DD/MM again. Much like the UK's relationship with metric/imperial, the problem with US dating

Except for cases like the 4th of July, in which case it's suddenly DD/MM again. Much like the UK's relationship with metric/imperial, the problem with US dating is that it's not consistent. In the UK we'd say "18th [of] August, 2020"

ericmay 6y ago
Because when we say "4th of July" it's not being said in the context of a date, it's an event. It's used in the same context that Christmas or Thanksgiving would be used. You don't say that we're inconsistent because we call Christmas "Christmas" instead of December 25th. We also call the 4th of July Independence Day. It's just colloquial usage. If you ask someone what date Independence Day is they'll say July 4th, 1776. Not 4th of July, 1776. Test it. > In the UK we'd say "18th [of] August, 2020" Cool. In the US we say August 18th, 2020. So that's why we do MM/DD/YYYY. If you have any American colleagues or friends you can text this by asking them what the date is. They'll say August 18th (maybe with the 2020 part depending on how specific they want to be). I really don't understand why people are so hell bent on changing our culture. We do it this way and like it. It's not a big deal.
- spacedcowboy 6y ago
  I just asked 4 people “what date Independence day is”, got 3 weird looks and 4 answers of “4th July”, no year specified. Non-US people don’t like it because it’s (a) different, and (b) illogical. If it were different and logical (ie: the numbers were in some hierarchical sequence), there’d be a lot less criticism of it, IMHO.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    Well, I don't really know what to tell you. People are probably just thinking of it in the holiday context. If they aren't specifying the year, then that's probably why. Maybe try "what's the exact date including year of US independence". They'll most likely say "July 4th, 1776'. > Non-US people don’t like it because it’s (a) different K. Well, respect different cultures. In the US we like to do it this way because that's how we say it. > and (b) illogical Who cares besides Europeans with nothing better to do with their vacation time? Humans aren't computers.
  - daveslash 6y ago
    If you asked US people, it makes sense that you'd get weird looks -- they think that you're asking because you don't know the date (and they expect that you would), whereas you're actually asking just to see how they say it. Also, as other's have pointed out, Independence day is an anomoly in how the US says dates -- we actually call this one "The 4th of July" A less conspicuous date might work better. "When's Valentine's Day?" or "When's St. Patrick's Day?" (Feb 14th and Mar 17th, respectively).
- chownie 6y ago
  > Because when we say "4th of July" it's not being said in the context of a date, it's an event. Eh, that's not very compelling. You have a specific event for which you break your date ordering just because? "It's an event" doesn't explain why the ordering is suddenly not the standard. It looks like a holdover from a prior point in history before there was the current trend of spoken date endianness. Look at "Seventh of March speech" as another example. > Cool. In the US we say August 18th, 2020. So that's why we do MM/DD/YYYY. This isn't actually the case from what I can tell by looking online, both England and the english speaking north Americans used a mixture of MM/DD/YYYY (but only with written out months) and DD/MM/YYYY. Once there was a move toward number-only dates around 1900 England disposed of middle endian dates and the US preserved them. > I really don't understand why people are so hell bent on changing our culture. We do it this way and like it. It's not a big deal. Global communication, US is the only place using this date format, can be mis-parsed for the first 12 days of every month, not even consistent within itself etc. You're defending it with as much gusto as people in other places care. It's a minor annoyance to convert ambiguous dates, that's pretty much it.
pm24601 6y ago
Which is why UK does not have the Star Wars holiday of May the Fource

ericmay 6y ago

Because when we say "4th of July" it's not being said in the context of a date, it's an event. It's used in the same context that Christmas or Thanksgiving would be used. You don't say that we're inconsistent because we call Christmas "Christmas" instead of December 25th. We also call the 4th of July Independence Day. It's just colloquial usage. If you ask someone what date Independence Day is they'll say July 4th, 1776. Not 4th of July, 1776. Test it. > In the UK we'd say "18th [of] August, 2020" Cool. In the US we say August 18th, 2020. So that's why we do MM/DD/YYYY. If you have any American colleagues or friends you can text this by asking them what the date is. They'll say August 18th (maybe with the 2020 part depending on how specific they want to be). I really don't understand why people are so hell bent on changing our culture. We do it this way and like it. It's not a big deal.

spacedcowboy 6y ago
I just asked 4 people “what date Independence day is”, got 3 weird looks and 4 answers of “4th July”, no year specified. Non-US people don’t like it because it’s (a) different, and (b) illogical. If it were different and logical (ie: the numbers were in some hierarchical sequence), there’d be a lot less criticism of it, IMHO.
- ericmay 6y ago
  Well, I don't really know what to tell you. People are probably just thinking of it in the holiday context. If they aren't specifying the year, then that's probably why. Maybe try "what's the exact date including year of US independence". They'll most likely say "July 4th, 1776'. > Non-US people don’t like it because it’s (a) different K. Well, respect different cultures. In the US we like to do it this way because that's how we say it. > and (b) illogical Who cares besides Europeans with nothing better to do with their vacation time? Humans aren't computers.
- daveslash 6y ago
  If you asked US people, it makes sense that you'd get weird looks -- they think that you're asking because you don't know the date (and they expect that you would), whereas you're actually asking just to see how they say it. Also, as other's have pointed out, Independence day is an anomoly in how the US says dates -- we actually call this one "The 4th of July" A less conspicuous date might work better. "When's Valentine's Day?" or "When's St. Patrick's Day?" (Feb 14th and Mar 17th, respectively).
chownie 6y ago
> Because when we say "4th of July" it's not being said in the context of a date, it's an event. Eh, that's not very compelling. You have a specific event for which you break your date ordering just because? "It's an event" doesn't explain why the ordering is suddenly not the standard. It looks like a holdover from a prior point in history before there was the current trend of spoken date endianness. Look at "Seventh of March speech" as another example. > Cool. In the US we say August 18th, 2020. So that's why we do MM/DD/YYYY. This isn't actually the case from what I can tell by looking online, both England and the english speaking north Americans used a mixture of MM/DD/YYYY (but only with written out months) and DD/MM/YYYY. Once there was a move toward number-only dates around 1900 England disposed of middle endian dates and the US preserved them. > I really don't understand why people are so hell bent on changing our culture. We do it this way and like it. It's not a big deal. Global communication, US is the only place using this date format, can be mis-parsed for the first 12 days of every month, not even consistent within itself etc. You're defending it with as much gusto as people in other places care. It's a minor annoyance to convert ambiguous dates, that's pretty much it.

pm24601 6y ago

Which is why UK does not have the Star Wars holiday of May the Fource