The United States is one of the fewcountries that use “mm-dd-yyyy” as their date format–which is very veryunique! The day is written first and the year last in most countries(dd-mm-yyyy) and some nations, such as Iran, Korea, and China, write the yearfirst and the day last (yyyy-mm-dd). But why did Americans choose to write themonth first? Oneof the hypotheses is that the United States borrowed the way it was writtenfrom the United Kingdom who used it before the 20th century and then laterchanged it to match Europe (dd-mm-yyyy). American colonists liked theiroriginal format and it’s been that way ever since.
The United States has a rather unique way of writing the date that is imitated in very few other countries (although Canada and Belize do also use the form). In America, the date is formally written in month/day/year form. Thus, “January 1, 2011” is widely considered to be correct. In formal usage, it is not appropriate to omit the year, or to use a purely numerical form of the date. For example, if you were to write a formal letter for business, you would write out the entire date, including the name of the month (January 1, 2011). Writing it out in full allows for the notation to be understood even by people for whom the month/day/year form is relatively uncommon.
The United States is one of the few countries that use “mm-dd-yyyy” as their date format–which is very very unique! The day is written first and the year last in most countries (dd-mm-yyyy) and some nations, such as Iran, Korea, and China, write the year first and the day last (yyyy-mm-dd).
In traditional American usage, dates are written in the month–day–year order (e.g. April 14, 2024) with a comma before and after the year if it is not at the end of a sentence and time in 12-hour notation (8:00 pm).
The standard format for writing dates in the United States is Month-Day-Year. For example, “August 30, 2023.” You may also see the month abbreviated to three letters, such as “Aug 30, 2023.”
In the European format, the day is written first and the month is written second, while in the US format, the month is written first and the day is written second. For example, in the European format, January 5th would be written as "05/01", while in the US format it would be written as "01/05".
DD/MM/YYYY or DD-MM-YYYY: This format is widely used in Europe, Asia, and many other parts of the world. For example, January 27, 2024, would be represented as 27/01/2024 or 27-01-2024.
The little-endian format (day, month, year; 1 June 2022) is the most popular format worldwide, followed by the big-endian format (year, month, day; 2006 June 1). Dates may be written partly in Roman numerals (i.e. the month) or written out partly or completely in words in the local language.
The best theory is that Americans generally gravitate towards speaking and writing out dates with the month first, so then it makes sense to replicate that in the numbered American date format of MM/DD/YY.
It is not likely to matter; however, if you are drafting the document, spelling out the month (i.e., May 24, 2011) makes it clearer, just like writing the sum out on a check. For documents such as wills, I go even further, spelling out the date: "This twenty-fourth day of May, 2011."
[YYYY] indicates a four-digit year, 0000 through 9999. [MM] indicates a two-digit month of the year, 01 through 12. [DD] indicates a two-digit day of that month, 01 through 31. For example, "5 April 1981" may be represented as either "1981-04-05" in the extended format or "19810405" in the basic format.
The U.S. military, which cannot afford international misunderstanding, writes dates in DAY/MONTH/YEAR order as 4 JUL 1999. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service now requires airline passengers arriving from abroad to fill out forms with dates written in DAY/MONTH/YEAR order.
Introduction: My name is Pres. Carey Rath, I am a faithful, funny, vast, joyous, lively, brave, glamorous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
