Why do Americans put the date the wrong way around?
WASHINGTON. December 18. KAZINFORM It's a question that's been bothering us since last Wednesday when the world witnessed 11/12/13, one of the few dates of our time with consecutive numbers.
The Yanks, of course, butchered it. To them, it was 12/11/13.
The United States is the only nation in the world which insists on dates laid out as mm-dd-yyyy. It is used occasionally in some other countries, including Canada and the Philippines.
Who thought dates could be so confusing.
The historical reasons for the unusual date format are foggy but there are compelling explanations.
America inherited the months-first dates from the United Kingdom where it was occasionally used until the early 20th century, historians said on Reddit.
American colonists favoured the monthly format, while the British Empire drifted towards the European style of dd-mm-yyyy.
The American format did not cause as much confusion when the date was written the way it was spoken: December 17, 2013, for today.
But the digital era made it necessary for dates to explained with numbers, such as 12/25/2013. America stuck mm-dd-yyyy while the rest of the world moved to a more logical format.
There is third way, though: The US military, China, Japan and the Koreas follow a different convention. The International Standardisation Organisation has set yyyy-mm-dd as the internationally accepted way to represent time and date.
It moves from the biggest unit of time (years) to the smallest (days). Perhaps even we could be more correct in how we arrange our dates.
Source: www.news.com.au