Americans don't bother looking.

[DJ Down Under]

But for the rest I have something very interesting.

Well...just a little interesting.


INTERESTING FACT.



Just in case you wanted to know this.



On the 4th of next month, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.



That won't ever happen again in our lifetime In fact it will be approx 400 generations before it happens again.



You may now return to your life.



I wonder why America puts the month before the day before the year...does anyone else in the world put the date the American way..just wondering.

DJ

[BobFV1]

I wonder why America puts the month before the day before the year...does anyone else in the world put the date the American way..just wondering.
DJ

I don't know why we do it this way - maybe it has somthing to do with the fact that our women have sideways snappers.

[mnnden]

DJ this is what I came up with, I'm not sure if it answers the question as to why, but it is interesting, Den

Date format
Related to the classification of a day as a specific calendar date is the format used to express that date. The differing formats of dates are an example of endianness.

Even for any specific calendar system, different formats are used. For example, the following formats all express the same date in the Gregorian calendar:

[edit]
Little endian forms, starting with the day
This sequence is common to the vast majority of the world's countries, and is used as the accepted international date usage.

16/11/2003, 16.11.2003, 16-11-2003 or 16-11-03
16th of November 2003
16th November 2003
16 November 2003
16 Nov 2003
[edit]
Big endian forms, starting with the year
This form is consistent with the endianness of the western decimal numbering system, progressing from the highest to the lowest order magnitude.

2003 November 16
2003-11-16: the ISO 8601 International formal standard ordering for dates, often formatted to be especially easily read and sorted by computers. It's used with UTC in the Internet date/time format (see the external link below). This format is also favoured in certain Asian countries, mainly the East Asia.
[edit]
Middle endian forms, starting with the month
This sequence is common to a smaller number of countries.

November 16, 2003
Nov. 16, 2003
11/16/2003, 11-16-2003, 11.16.2003 or 11.16.03
This order is used in the United States and countries with U.S. influence (but the U.S. federal government sometimes uses day, month, year). England originally used day, month, year, then for a while used month, day, year, and finally the original form (day, month, year) was revived around 1900. Canada officially uses the big endian convention, but all three conventions are used in practice.

It would appear that the U.S federal government can go either way!!! (who would have thought?)
[edit]

[TorqueMonsterMT-01]

I don't know why, but I can guess.

In the US if you ask somewhat what the date is, they will more than likely say April 25th. Hence the written form looks like 4-25-2006.

In Latin based languages such as Spanish, the spoken response is veinte cinco de abril, so the written form is 25-04-2006

In the UK, they never know what day it is because it is cloudy all the time, so they just use the French style!:ymca:

In Australia they just do whatever the queen of England says, so there you have it. :068:

[Gord]

Well this is one member of the Commonwealth who prefers the MM/DD/YY format of our southern brethren. From the earliest days of gradeschool, I was taught to date my work with month day year in written form (May 2, 1966) so it was logical to extend that to contracted forms of dates (05/02/66).

Perhaps there is also a logical reason for it. When May 12th is written as 05/12, it can be spoken as written (i.e. May 12th). When written as 12/05, it is spoken as 12th of May. Perhaps the insertion of that of is considered excessive by those who are economical in their speaking and want to consume as few words and letters as possible! Now I am really stretching it...

[geechie]

There have been some very lucid explanations already given as to why we do the way we do. I'll just add that problems arise where ambiguity lies. I've collected a lot of data over the years and to avoid confusion have always used this format: 25 APR 2006.

George

[mnnden]

There have been some very lucid explanations already given as to why we do the way we do. I'll just add that problems arise where ambiguity lies. I've collected a lot of data over the years and to avoid confusion have always used this format: 25 APR 2006.

George

I believe that is the format of the U.S. Military. Den

[Est51]

I know we're likely to favour the way we're used to but surely it's more logical to put the day first. Unless you're very confused, you're likely to know what year and month it is, whilst you may be unsure of the day. Consequently, when asked what the date is, I'd normally answer "The 30th", not "The 30th of April" or, for that matter, "April the 30th".

Given that we standardised so much during the two great wars, I'm amazed that we haven't come closer together with such details but I discovered last week that even keyboards aren't standard across the world. Here in England the keyboard starts "QWERTY" but in France they start "AZERTY". A colleague tells me that German ones are different again. I'm not sure why it should surprise me but I just assumed keyboards were the same everywhere.

Cheers, Steve