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These replies are fascinating. When saying a date I always say month day year. I hadn’t considered that this might be cultural.
by irrational 4y ago
These replies are fascinating. When saying a date I always say month day year. I hadn’t considered that this might be cultural.
- ethbr0 4y agoAs an American, same. I was wondering where the weird month-first came from and figured it might have been verbal first, then codified in writing.
- irrational 4y agoAt first I wondered if it had something to do with word order in English, but it sounds like other English speaking countries don’t follow this pattern.
- Tagbert 4y agoDon’t currently “follow this pattern”. US English has several grammatical and pronunciation characteristics that were common in UK English about 300 years ago. Including being largely (but not totally) rhotic.
- frutiger 4y agoI moved to the US from the UK a little over 10 years ago. The numeric month and day of my birthday happen to be the same. For this anecdote lets assume it’s 01/01/1970. When medical staff ask me for my date of birth, I’ll say “1st Jan 1970”. They’ll reply asking “Sorry, Jan 1st?” And I’ll say “yeah”. This blew my (programmer) mind. Over the years I’ve rewired my brain to say “Jan 1st 1970” and avoid the extra round trip.