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Americans use "March 5th" as the verbal form of dates when the context (year) is clear. This actually makes sense -- it puts the most significant part first, an

Americans use "March 5th" as the verbal form of dates when the context (year) is clear. This actually makes sense -- it puts the most significant part first, and narrows from there. The numeric representation follows that form, becoming "3/5". But of course for full context, Americans say "March 5th, 2024", yielding "3/5/24" or similar atrocities. I'm a big fan of ISO 8601. They got this one right. It's clear, non-preferential, and (critically) it sorts lexically with expected results!

wongarsu 3y ago
But if Americans follow the reasoning to put the most important information first, then why do they say "March 5th, 2024"? With that reasoning shouldn't it be "2024 March 5th"? For spoken communication you could even extend it to "Anno Domini 2024 March 5th", following the common pattern in spoken language of adding somewhat redundant filler to indicate something worth paying attention to is coming up.
- quesera 3y ago
  > Anno Domini 2024 March 5th Gregorian Anno Domini 2024 March 5th. :)
- sfink 3y ago
  > But if Americans follow the reasoning to put the most important information first, then why do they say "March 5th, 2024"? With that reasoning shouldn't it be "2024 March 5th"? Because you're falsely equating "important" and "significant". It's not about little endian vs big endian, which is all about magnitudes. Most of the time, the year is implicit (i.e., this year, or perhaps next year but that will be inferred from the month). Rolling over months happens quite often, rolling over years is rare. And in cases where the month really doesn't matter, it'll be dropped: "see you on the 5th!" That said, I personally dislike both MM-DD-YYYY and DD-MM-YYYY. Mon DD, YYYY is fine. YYYY-MM-DD (ISO8601) is fine (and to be preferred when naming files or in any other context where you'll be seeing lots of dates at once).

wongarsu 3y ago

But if Americans follow the reasoning to put the most important information first, then why do they say "March 5th, 2024"? With that reasoning shouldn't it be "2024 March 5th"? For spoken communication you could even extend it to "Anno Domini 2024 March 5th", following the common pattern in spoken language of adding somewhat redundant filler to indicate something worth paying attention to is coming up.

quesera 3y ago
> Anno Domini 2024 March 5th Gregorian Anno Domini 2024 March 5th. :)
sfink 3y ago
> But if Americans follow the reasoning to put the most important information first, then why do they say "March 5th, 2024"? With that reasoning shouldn't it be "2024 March 5th"? Because you're falsely equating "important" and "significant". It's not about little endian vs big endian, which is all about magnitudes. Most of the time, the year is implicit (i.e., this year, or perhaps next year but that will be inferred from the month). Rolling over months happens quite often, rolling over years is rare. And in cases where the month really doesn't matter, it'll be dropped: "see you on the 5th!" That said, I personally dislike both MM-DD-YYYY and DD-MM-YYYY. Mon DD, YYYY is fine. YYYY-MM-DD (ISO8601) is fine (and to be preferred when naming files or in any other context where you'll be seeing lots of dates at once).