Why do Americans want to know the month first and the day second?
Why do Americans want to know the month first and the day second?
I'm sorry but it doesn't make sense TO ME. Based on what I was taught, regardless of the month, I think what matters first is to know what day of the month you are in, if at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of said month. After you know that, you can find out the month to know where you are in the year.
What is the benefit of doing it the other way around?
EDIT: To avoid misunderstandings:
- I am NOT making fun OF ANYONE.
- I am NOT negatively judging ANYTHING.
- I am totally open to being corrected and LEARN.
- This post is out of pure and honest CURIOSITY.
So PLEASE, don't take it the wrong way.
They say it "June 1st", as opposed to "1st of June", so it makes sense to write it that way. That, mate, was a hard lesson to learn for me lol.
I say June 2nd of 2025
I type 2025-06-02
Handwritten it's 2-June-2025
I'm from before 2000 and the turn to years being so small broke me, it used to be so clear which number was the year with just 2 digits, and day, month, year is sorting from smallest unit to biggest, it has logic. But then for awhile you could have a 04, an 05, and an 06 and I was working with other countries, it wasn't at all clear which was year month or day, so I started sandwiching the month in the middle as a word when handwriting dates and using 4 digit year, and year month day sorts like a dream for filenames.
There are plenty of other scenarios with a similar pattern of starting at the larger scale and then the specific.
TV shows: Season 2 Episode 9
Theatre: Act one, scene 3
Biblical: Book of John 3:16
Other books: Chapter 9, page 125.
Address: 123 Main St, Apt #2
Phone numbers: country code (area code) locality-individual
I'm not saying either is right or wrong, but there are precedents for either way.
I'm a fan of ISO-8601 which is YYYY-MM-DD. When context is known, dropping the year on something is fine (i.e. if I post a schedule saying 'summer 2025 schedule', I don't need to start every date on it with 2025). Japanese does this as well (and I think Chinese and Korean, but someone is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong there).
If the year and month are already known, just using the day is fine as well (a calendar doesn't write the full date in every square). Having it in that order makes sense to me.
MM-DD-YYYY is right out, though, so I only agree with the 'muricans on the MM-DD part.
I'm sure the history is that, for most daily purposes, it was useful to know both. Knowing the larger element (the month) first sets the context for the smaller detail. For instance, saying I met someone for dinner on December 12 gives you the broader context (e.g. the season, possible relevant events) before the smaller detail of the day.
I like it. Many agree that YYYY-MM-DD is superior. It also reflects informational entropy. Each additional piece of information narrows down the search space most efficiently.
But in normal conversation, chances are we’re talking about the current year. So it makes sense to skip the year, or save it for last.
Word by word, if someone says the month first, I’m already able to know roughly when this date is. Then the information is hammered out with the day.
If someone says the day first, it barely helps — could literally be in any month of the year. It leaves too much unknown until the next piece of information is received.
I personally prefer yyyy-mm-dd, as the Japanese do, which also puts month before day. I think it's because they tend to prioritize history, so that makes sense. Year gives a historical context, month gives the season, while day is kind of arbitrary when talking about historical events. Day will matter most if I'm making short term plans, though, so I certainly see the appeal for day to day life.
Depending on what you're doing, one will matter more. Precision matters more the more fine tuned the situation.
Think of it like hours vs minutes vs seconds. If I'm just thinking vaguely about the time of day, hour gives me most of the context. If I'm meeting someone or baking cookies, minutes matter a lot more but seconds is a bit too specific. If I'm defusing a bomb? Seconds matter.
Because the month tells me more about how far in the future something is. If I have an appointment on the 12th of July, there's not much information in knowing it's on the 12th. 12th of what? But it's in July, so between 1 and 2 months in the future. If I need more info, then I'll pay attention to the day. So in order of information given.
Historical dates are similar, except I really just need (roughly) the year, and then a month if that's relevant. Knowing the exact date of a historical event is just showing off. But if you know the month, you know what season it was, what the weather was probably like. Was it planting/growing/harvest time? You can guess at a lot of things with just the month.
It's inherited from a historic convention from the UK. Historically the rationale was that the month was more important than the year, so they put it first, although this has no useful consistency or order to it.
Unfortunately, kind of dumb decisions from the past tend to stick and keep existing for an unnecessary long time because people get used to them and then never change them. Popularity or habit can beat reason, objectivity etc...
As an American I'm not really a fan of it mainly because it's different from the World standard. We are the only country that insists on doing it different. It would not be hard to change either. I would love for it to change but it's not something I'm putting a lot of time or thought into right now.
Because fuck you, that’s why
I was taught DD/MM/YY and that's what I use in typed form, but I prefer MM/DD/YYYY, at least in speech e.g. 'June 13th 2025'. It feels cleaner to narrow by month, then day, otherwise you're mentally having to wait for context, working backwards. The year is almost irrelevant as it changes so infrequently, about once a year.
ISO 8601 for organising on a computer, as sorting by largest to smallest is the most logical.
We don't want or care about it. Its just the way its always been over here. Same with fahrenheit and the imperial system. I know this is a little exaggerated but imagine asking a Japanese person why they dont just speak english because its the worlds most spoken language. Its one of those things other countries like to pick on us for that I think is a little stupid. Instead you should be dunking on us for putting an orange party clown in the whitehouse. Again. But then again there are some exploitative processes that helped make that happen like gerrymandering. My point is that our shit healthcare and the majority of the things that we are laughed at for is out of our hands. Even the fat jokes can be somewhat blamed on the fact that the availabilty of cheap unhealthy food with a large portion size is greater than pricier organic options and lots of the poor tend to take that route. I'm not saying our majority is completely blameless but these are factors to consider.
Edit: following your Edit: thank you for the clarification
In Chinese, its also Month, then day.
Its always "五月 三十一号" (May 31st), never "三十一号 五月" (31st May)
When saying a day in history, the full format is used: 一九六九年 七月二十日 (1969 Year 7th Month 20th Day), but when you use it during every day life to refer to a day in the same year, the year is omitted. If you are referring to the same month, the month also get ommitted.
TLDR: Not unique to "Americans"
Linguistics
In UK English, it's considered proper to write "the 6th of March" as "6 March" and sometimes read as "6th March" which can be jarring to Americans as their shorthand is "March 6th" and when "6(th) March" is encountered in written form, it's expanded to the full "6th of March" when spoken
That doesn't mean this won't be yet another feature American English absorbs from UK English but right now flipping them in speech requires a few extra syllables and people are lazy
The month first is best because consider what happens if a message gets cut off. You might get: "You'll be flying to New York on the first of ..." or "You'll be flying to New York on June..."
The first message doesn't tell you anything useful. Do you need to buy shorts or a parka? Do you have months to prepare or are you leaving in a few hours? Could this be an april fools joke? It's a 1/12 chance. Totally useless.
Second message, sure the details are unclear but at least you know what to pack and that you need to hurry about getting the rest of the message.
I don't think there's any real logic behind it other than the founders of our nation post the war of independence did not want to have any real similarities between America and Britain.
Context clues.