dd/mm/yyyy is the way to go, imo

[manasecret]

Just guessing here, but perhaps the American way came from the usual way of saying a date in English in the U.S. -- e.g. it's August 30th, 1984.

Originally Posted by Ric

dd/mm/yyyy

When you are talking about a date you may be asked, 'what day/what month/what year' so this order makes far more sense to me. I never understood the American way of writing it, it is not logical to me. When we say the date in the UK we would not say 'It's June the 6th' we would say 'It's the 6th of June' if speaking in correct English.

This is one of those little things that gets on my nerves, something else is when people put Sunday as the first day of the week, it's not, Monday is. Sunday is the last day of the week. While we are on the subject I also hate clocks that have roman numerals on and instead of using the correct characters for 4 which are IV they put IIII. You even get this on antique clocks, and it is wrong. Why do they do this, Why?

Haha if you let cultural differences like that (minus the Roman numeral of IIII, which is just incorrect) bother you so much, you're going to have a very annoyed life.

[Ric]

So what do you say if asked your date of birth?

In my case I would say - 'The Second Of The Seventh, Eighty Four.'
If I said it the American way would I have to say? 'The Seventh Month And The Second Day Of Eighty Four' ... It just does not sit right with me.

EDIT: It's not that the differences 'really' bother me. I just think some things are silly because they are not logical to me. I guess I should remember there is a difference between English English and American English. IIII on a clock is just pathetically stupid though. I am not trying to shit on anyones cultural differences, thats just the way I feel.

[The Germanator]

Originally Posted by Ric

So what do you say if asked your date of birth?

In my case I would say - 'The Second Of The Seventh, Eighty Four.'
If I said it the American way would I have to say? 'The Seventh Month And The Second Day Of Eighty Four' ... It just does not sit right with me.

That's really what you would say if some asked for your birthday? We usually don't even numerically say the month, we only do that when we write it. A simple response would be "August 15th, 1985." Is that really that odd? Just as the 15th of August, 1985 wouldn't be that weird either..

I think the weirdness just becomes with the muscle memory of writing it the way we do. For whatever reason I was taught to write 8/15/85 for the date above, and if I saw it as 15/8/85 it would take me a second because my brain doesn't immediately recognize that pattern. I understand why both sides think the other is strange, mainly because we didn't learn it that way.

EDIT: Mana stole my thunder, whoops. Heh.

[Typhoid]

mm/dd/yyyy


I find that's typically how it is shorthand, and I find it less confusing, personally.

[gekko]

mm/dd/yyyy is my favorite. Used yyyymmdd in the military, which makes it easier to sort with a computer, but I'm not a computer. Use mm/dd/yyyy.

[Ric]

Originally Posted by The Germanator

I think the weirdness just becomes with the muscle memory of writing it the way we do. For whatever reason I was taught to write 8/15/85 for the date above, and if I saw it as 15/8/85 it would take me a second because my brain doesn't immediately recognize that pattern. I understand why both sides think the other is strange, mainly because we didn't learn it that way.

EDIT: Mana stole my thunder, whoops. Heh.

I would have to agree. It's like you say, you just have to think about it for a few seconds more.

Just to clear something up, if asked my 'Date Of Birth' I would say The Second of the Seventh.
If asked 'when is my birthday' I would either say The Second Of July (which is the correct way) or July The Second (which is actually a slang/bad english way of saying it.) I speak two languages, English and Bad English