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.
regardless of the month, I think what matters first is to know what day of the month you are in
You’re telling me that if you have a list of scheduled dates in the near future to meet with clients/patients/whatever, you first want them sorted by day, and then month?
So this list is the order you want to see these in?
- 4/5/25
- 8/7/25
- 15/6/25
- 16/5/25
- 23/6/25
Doesn’t it make way more sense to see them sorted by month first, then day, so that they’re actually in chronological order.
- 5/4/25
- 5/16/25
- 6/15/25
- 6/23/25
- 7/8/25
The only way you could defend the former listing is if you’re also arguing that it makes sense to sort the list by the middle column, and hopefully we all agree that is just absurd. We don’t alphabetize people by their middle names. You don’t look up a word in the dictionary starting with the letter in the middle.
I jest, but I think this illustrates a real-life, commonplace example of when it makes sense. I agree that MM/DD/YYYY is not in order of magnitude, but I do believe it’s in order of most significance to least significance given the timescales we are typically dealing with.
Such a waste. 2025-06-01. Easy. Chronological.
So,
- OP is asking why month before day rather than day before month
- In your example, it’s not clear whether you are doing Y-M-D or Y-D-M, but I assume you are putting month before day, so we agree on that part. But
- I think we’re all in favor of: Most significant on the left -> Least significant on the right. I’m just arguing that, most if the time, for the most common uses, Month is most significant. It’s just more common that you’re looking at a list of dates that all span the next few months than a list of dates that are all within this month, or beyond a year.
The short answer is, it’s what we were taught in school. Like many preferences, it’s shaped by the culture we grow up and live in.
I’m sorry but it doesn’t make sense to me.
Of course not, you were raised and live in a different culture; so, your preferences are different.
Ultimately, the right answer is ISO8601. It’s unambiguous and sorts well on computers. But, I don’t think any culture is teaching that as the primary way to write dates, so we’re stuck with the crappy ways.
As an American it was just what we were taught. However, when I started creating code and being pedantic about organizing files by date, I now prefer YYYYMMDD format as it is, chronologically speaking, superior when prefacing files with it. In this case, in my opinion, it’s better to have the year and then month first prior to day.
To each their own, variety is the spice of life.
This is the only format that truly makes sense, as it is both unambiguous and, as you noted, sortable.
Out of curiosity: do you also find it weird that (I’m assuming) you use hour:minute order when reading the clock, instead of minute:hour? Would saying the minute first make more sense to you?
No
Idk but I think it works best for us. I like how July 4th 2025 sounds over 04 July 2025. Call it cultural differences I suppose and that’s that.
