MDY forms

[Ester Maria]

I don't get it. I really tried, but I don't get it.

 

Why do so many people use the M/D/Y form and not the D/M/Y form? It beats any logic... why would you first state something as general as a month, then inside it go as specific as a day, and then state something even more general as a year? Isn't it just so practical and neat to move from more specific stuff to more general stuff - from minutes to hours, to days, to months, to years?

 

I get that many times I can understand it from the context, but still... WHY? It is so obvious that one particular form is much more practical and clear. Why M/D/Y then? Am I missing some finer point and some inner logic of the M/D/Y?

 

Which do you use?

[Caitilin]

Tradition, tradition!

 

In American English, it just IS standard to give the date as May 16, not 16 May. Does it make particularly good sense? No. It's just THE WAY THINGS ARE.:lol: Like many linguistic conventions, I don't think it's susceptible to rational analysis.

[bookfiend]

All I will say is this has the classic potential to light a board conflagration. :D

[olan719]

I wonder if this is a regional thing? Almost all forms here in the South are M/D/Y. I get so confused when it's D/M/Y, but to be honest, I don't see it much. I definitely use M/D/Y. :)

[LinRTX]

Actually that is standard for the American public, but military forms the common way would be 16 May. I worked one summer on a military base and I have to stop and think to write May 16.

 

Linda

[Teachaheart]

I don't get it. I really tried, but I don't get it.

 

Why do so many people use the M/D/Y form and not the D/M/Y form? It beats any logic... why would you first state something as general as a month, then inside it go as specific as a day, and then state something even more general as a year? Isn't it just so practical and neat to move from more specific stuff to more general stuff - from minutes to hours, to days, to months, to years?

 

I get that many times I can understand it from the context, but still... WHY? It is so obvious that one particular form is much more practical and clear. Why M/D/Y then? Am I missing some finer point and some inner logic of the M/D/Y?

 

Which do you use?

 

I completely understand what you are saying. I use the D/M/Y format unless forced to do otherwise. Of course, when I lived in Japan I used the Y/M/D format, which still makes far more sense than the US's insistence on M/D/Y.

 

I just noticed that a pp mentioned the US military using the D/M/Y form. I grew up in a military family, which is how I first learned this form.

Edited May 16, 2011 by teachaheart
More Information

[myfunnybunch]

Funny, I've never really thought it through. We use M/D/Y because it's what I was taught, so it's what I take in quickly at a glance. I find D/M/Y irritating because I see it so rarely that I have to stop to think about it for a split second. (Though if we switched at some point, I'd certainly re-train quickly.)

 

However, I'm not likely to switch. I organize my papers, garden plans, calendar, etc. by month. It's easier if all the papers in the May bunch start with "5" or if I flip to the May page of my calendar before I look for a particular day. Visually, the M/D/Y format suits my organization style.

 

Obviously, it really doesn't make a difference one way or the other. If I was accustomed to the D/M/Y format, I'd just look at the middle # instead to figure out which page to flip to or which folders the papers go in. It kind of begs the question, though: Which came first, the date format or the way I think about dates?

 

Cat

[Ester Maria]

Tradition, tradition!

I suspected this would be the answer. :D I am trying to "translate" your logic to my terms, but I got stuck, so I thought I'd ask.

 

But what really confuses me is not so much MDY, but the fact that's it's not uniform from what I see. There's also a lot of DMY.

 

So when somebody says they were having a vacation 1/6/2001 - 1/8/2001, it can be two days or two months, and it's in totally different parts of the year. So how do I figure out such stuff, if there is no strict uniformity, but also no context? Sigh. :( :D

Edited May 16, 2011 by Ester Maria

[happi duck]

All I will say is this has the classic potential to light a board conflagration. :D

 

:lol: yippee!;)

 

IMHO...

year/month/day: makes sense, least specific to most specific

month/day/year: makes sense out of habit

day/month/year: doesn't work for me because I'm not accustomed to this format (My old brain is trained to start with the framework of "what month are we talking about?", kwim?)

[Chelle in MO]

I think one reason is that it's how we speak. We say things like, "I'm leaving for vacation on May 16th." We don't usually say, "I'm leaving for vacation on the 16th of May."

 

When it's all written in numerals, it can be very confusing! I often write the date on checks as 12 May 2011. I wouldn't write 12/5/2011 for May 12th.

[elegantlion]

I actually prefer the d/m/y. I still default to writing 16 May 2011 if not requested otherwise. The other way is standard American. I also wish we'd move to using the metric system as country.

[happi duck]

I suspected this would be the answer. :D I am trying to "translate" your logic to my terms, but I got stuck, so I thought I'd ask.

 

But what really confuses me is not so much MDY, but the fact that's it's not uniform from what I see. There's also a lot of DMY.

 

So when somebody says they were having a vacation 1/6/2001 - 1/8/2001, it can be two days or two months, and it's in totally different parts of the year. So how do I figure out such stuff, if there is no strict uniformity, but also no context? Sigh. :( :D

 

good example of possible confusion!

[QueenCat]

Outside of the military, it's the standard in the U.S. If you use another form, you may confuse people, or not have people show up or do something when you expected them to do so.

[twoforjoy]

I prefer D/M/Y, but I tend to use M/D/Y because that's customary. I really hadn't seen many people from the U.S. use D/M/Y, particularly when using all numerals.

[patchfire]

I actually prefer the d/m/y. I still default to writing 16 May 2011 if not requested otherwise. The other way is standard American. I also wish we'd move to using the metric system as country.

 

Me too. I want metric more than anything. I write dates in d/m/y format if they're for myself, but I usually do it like: 16.5.2011 if I'm just using numerals, and 5/16/2011 if it's on a check or whatever. So the '.' versus '/' is my code to myself as to which I'm writing first.

[Ester Maria]

16.5.2011

See, my OCD-ish brain gets upset at this too, I see it often. Better than MDY in any case, but I still have one problem with it. If there is a dot after the day and the month, why oh why do we not put it after the year too? I know, you can't. But still. Makes me want to :banghead: and just put it there. I was trying to find some inner logic of that too, but I couldn't. LOL.

 

 

 

I just have to accept that I am slightly crazy, right? :001_huh: Normal people would probably not think about these stuff, I guess?

[Ester Maria]

Why not Y/M/D?

That would be fine and it would not defy logic. :tongue_smilie: It would be going from general to specific, as opposed to from specific to general. I would still argue that for the sake of efficiency from specific to general is better.

 

Hmm.. maybe YMD was used before, then people got stuck with MD when they started shortening it? And then just added year behind rather than before?

[Paige]

My DH is military and does DMY. It drives me crazy. I refuse just to go along with it just because and always do MDY- as I was taught. I also get irritated with the 24hr time. Use whatever you want at work, but at home, speak normal American English!

 

I think it reflects how we talk, like the pp said. Do you speak in DMY when you are describing when you plan or did do something? I think you can usually distinguish whether it is DMY or MDY among Americans by the way it is usually written. MDY will be written 1/20/2001 or 1-20-2001. DMY, when I see DH use it, is usually written out- 20 January 2001, or 20.1.2001 We don't use dots to separate MDY, and I don't usually see slashes or dashes for DMY.

[Melanie]

We're military. We would write October 13th as 13OCT11. You've got your proper d/m/y format and zero confusion, no matter which population you're dealing with. :D

 

Actually, my favorite is the YYYYMMDD (20111013) format. I use it to organize my digital files.

[Sputterduck]

It's because in long form it's MDY. October 3rd, 1943 See? So we are used to it in a certain order and it doesn't make sense to me to take it out of proper order when you abbreviate it 10/3/43. You can expand and contract without rearranging.

[Sun]

I suspected this would be the answer. :D I am trying to "translate" your logic to my terms, but I got stuck, so I thought I'd ask.

 

But what really confuses me is not so much MDY, but the fact that's it's not uniform from what I see. There's also a lot of DMY.

 

So when somebody says they were having a vacation 1/6/2001 - 1/8/2001, it can be two days or two months, and it's in totally different parts of the year. So how do I figure out such stuff, if there is no strict uniformity, but also no context? Sigh. :( :D

 

I guess your only recourse is to consider the source. If it's an American writing in a non-military context, it's almost certainly MDY. The people I know who use DMY sometimes don't use exclusively numbers when there is a possibility of confusion (when the day is 12 or less); I do sometimes see the DMY format for those dates with the month written out. In the States, MDY is pretty universal outside the military.

 

If the document is European, then I'd consider it DMY unless I had strong evidence otherwise.

 

In Canada, I've seen it both ways, but I think the tendency for casual use is to use the MDY form. Government forms usually indicate which order is desired.

[vonfirmath]

I use M/D/Y in general

 

and Y/M/D for computer purposes (which makes MUCH more sense for finding correspondence, etc than Y/D/M)

[Nan in Mass]

It is confusing. I finally insisted that my family, some of whom do it one way and some of whom do it the other way, use a different dividing symbol. If you are going to put the day first, you have to use a dash: 16-5-11. If you are going to put the month first, you have to use a slash: 5/16/11. I get upset when slashes are used and the day is first. Then I discovered that you can't use slashes in file names. GRRRRR. So that system is now defunct. I think I have my youngest trained to use cursive and put the day first if he is writing in French, but... Sigh. I'm betting my merchant marine son is going to be using a third system from now on so the family dates are going to be even more confusing. Maybe I should insist on the month being written out.

[Sahamamama]

I don't get it. I really tried, but I don't get it.

 

Why do so many people use the M/D/Y form and not the D/M/Y form? It beats any logic... why would you first state something as general as a month, then inside it go as specific as a day, and then state something even more general as a year? Isn't it just so practical and neat to move from more specific stuff to more general stuff - from minutes to hours, to days, to months, to years?

 

I get that many times I can understand it from the context, but still... WHY? It is so obvious that one particular form is much more practical and clear. Why M/D/Y then? Am I missing some finer point and some inner logic of the M/D/Y?

 

Which do you use?

 

 

I had a Chinese friend in seminary who thought the way we do postal addresses in the US was wrong! :toetap05: He thought that the system in China was the right way!

 

He always was just a teeny bit ethnocentric, ;) but in this I could truly see his point. The Chinese way (according to Mr. Sun):

 

What do you need to know FIRST to deliver a letter? The country.

Next? The region/province (I'm clueless).

Next? The city or village.

Next? The street.

Next? The family name.

Next? The individual person's name.

 

To me, this makes PERFECT sense. The American way (according to, well, the American way):

 

The individual person's name, which is initially meaningless, because we don't even know yet if "Bubba Joe" is in the United States or the United Arab Emirates. Probably the US is a good guess in this case....

Next? The person's last name, also at this point meaningless... "Bubba Joe Jones where?"

Next? The number of the person's house. "Bubba Joe Jones at 3487 what?"

Next? The street name. "Bubba Joe Jones at 3487 Slipstitch Street in...?"

Next? The town. "Finally. Washington! Okay, Washington where?"

Next? The state/province. "Washington, State. What country, please?"

Next? The zip code (I'm told that in China this doesn't exist? :confused:)

Next? The country, if applicable. "USA." Of course.

 

Note that not one piece of information is meaningful in the order of encounter. Each piece is only given its meaning from the information following it, which actually means that the person delivering the mail reads the address backwards. Which might explain a few things about my mail delivery. :lol:

 

So, you can clearly see how if you want to DELIVER the letter, the American system is backwards to your needs. Right? :D As for dates, I like the European way better: Date/Month/Year. But I think only the military does that here in the US. IDK? For the sake of clarity, it's probably better for there to be only one system in the nation. Again, IDK.

 

Personally, I think the best way would be to say "Year/Month/Date," going from the larger category to the smaller. For example, "Oh, I remember now, we dined at that lovely restaurant in Tuscany in 2010, on August 19th."

 

If only this were true. :001_wub:

[Sugarfoot]

I honestly don't know. I agree it isn't exactly logical. FWIW, when I read Jules Verne out loud, DS15, aka Mr. Logic, loves to hear me state the date: "16 July..."etc.:lol:

[Virg]

I really like tradition.... for dates, addresses and measuring systems.... :blushing:

[cathmom]

Same reason we don't use the much more logical metric system...

[pooh bear]

I grew up in the UK, where they use D/M/Y.

 

When I moved to the US, writing it as M/D/Y, really confused me for a while.

 

But writing my birth date was no problem. 8/8/77.

 

No way you could mess that one up!

[Meriwether]

It's because in long form it's MDY. October 3rd, 1943 See? So we are used to it in a certain order and it doesn't make sense to me to take it out of proper order when you abbreviate it 10/3/43. You can expand and contract without rearranging.

:iagree:

[Aquinas Academy]

This has always puzzled me. I use D/M/Y unless I have a reason to do differently. Here in Canada there is no agreement about what way to write dates. I'd say 60% write M/D/Y and 40% write D/M/Y. It drives me crazy!

[secular_mom]

M/D/Y is what we were taught in school, and I guess it has just stuck. 12 years of writing M/D/Y on the top of every page we turned in kinda ingrains it, KWIM? Now I get all confuzzled when I'm filling out paperwork for the military, or signing a form underneath DH's signature because the military uses D/M/Y. It's really embarrassing, I kind of just freeze for a minute while trying to figure out HOW to write the date on the form.

[keptwoman]

Even in long form I would write the date first. 16th May, 2011

Them darn Americans, gotta do everything the strange way, even their standard paper size is different to the rest of the world!

[mhgillil]

Why do Americans do so many things strangely? (Asking as an American.) I don't even think I am aware of all of the things we do differently from the rest of the world.

[keptwoman]

Well standard paper size: You use Letter? Everyone else uses A4

Um, measurement, you use imperial, most places these days use metric

Dates

Spelling, different from all other English language countries.

And um, on the spot I can't think of any others, but I know there ARE others LOL because I stumble across them all the time.

[Hankins3]

I use M/D/Y, I guess mostly because this is the way we Americans were taught in school. I have never really thought too much about it though!

[Sahamamama]

Well standard paper size: You use Letter? Everyone else uses A4

Um, measurement, you use imperial, most places these days use metric

Dates

Spelling, different from all other English language countries.

And um, on the spot I can't think of any others, but I know there ARE others LOL because I stumble across them all the time.

 

You forgot driving on the RIGHT side of the road! ;) :lol:

[wapiti]

In the States, MDY is pretty universal outside the military.

 

If the document is European, then I'd consider it DMY unless I had strong evidence otherwise.

 

This.

[TexasRachel]

Actually that is standard for the American public, but military forms the common way would be 16 May. I worked one summer on a military base and I have to stop and think to write May 16.

 

Linda

 

This is me except I did it for two summers. It got fully ingrained in me.

[nukeswife]

I think those that said tradition as to why we do M/D/Y is most likely. I grew up being taught M/D/Y in school, but then almost 14 years ago I married a Navy man and like others have mentioned they use D/M/Y but mostly written as 16MAY11, I don't know that I've ever seen my husband use D/M/Y without writing out the month or 3 letter abbreviation for it in the middle.

 

I've now taught my kids the m/d/y format, but have thought of teaching them the military way as well. When I fill out forms I have no problem adjusting, for some reason when I'm in a civilian situation I just go with m/d/y and when I'm in a military situation my brain just switches to d/m/y. Not sure why it just does it.