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.

  • Jentu@lemmy.ml
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    18 hours ago

    Year is the most significant (read: big) unit in the list, but it is the least significant (pertinent to daily life) unless you’re a time traveler. Of month and day, month is more significant than day in both size and pertinence, so it gets ordered first. But when sorting things into folders or file naming conventions, biggest category descending down to smaller categories is always the best.

    • beastlykings@sh.itjust.works
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      17 hours ago

      You articulated what I was thinking, better than I could have. This is it for me.

      I’d add that there’s probably a lot of habit involved, plus the fact that everyone else does it.

      So not only am I not used to saying “today is the 4th of May”, everyone around me isn’t used to hearing it either and might think I’m being weird.

  • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    Ignoring the coding side of things…

    It’s relative. And also works easier to navigate the calendar. If we’re planning something for next year I pull up next year’s calendar. If it’s this years and we’re planning something for later this year, when I hear you say August, that’s the month I go to. But if you say the 27th of August, The first thing I heard was the 27th which could possibly be this month or next month if it’s say the 28th today.

  • JargonWagon@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    American here. No idea. Either DD/MM/YYYY or YYYY/MM/DD are more logical, but here we are. When naming/renaming files and including a date in the name, I’ll usually do YYYYMMDD format somewhere. If I’m emailing/texting others, I use MM/DD/YYYY.

    Fun little story, the department I work in recently began to work with some people over in the UK, and even though I brought up the date format differences, we’ve already had someone of gett the month and day flipped and it caused some confusion on our end.

  • mercano@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Most significant digits first. You write the thousands place before the hundreds, you write the month before the day. Of course, the whole argument is blow away when you write the year at the end instead of the beginning. (ISO YYYY-MM-DD dates for the win.)

    • communism@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Most significant digits first.

      That would only make sense if the US wrote the year first, but they don’t. They just seem to slap the date together in a random order

      • jacksilver@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I think that’s context relevant though. If we think about when dates are most frequently used (news, business, planning) it’s typically within the year (or month will give context).

        That added with the fact it’s not uncommon in some situations to just provide month/day.

        That being said, I don’t think either is better or worse. Just a preference kinda thing, unlike the issue between metric and imperial units.

  • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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    22 hours ago

    To make sure its not December right away. Fuck that entire month. Everyone hates December so much they throw the years biggest party at the end of it.

  • That_Devil_Girl@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    I write the date a bit different depending on which format its going on.

    For example, computers like to sort things alphabetically. If I’m writing electronic diary entries, I’ll name the document as “2025-06-01.”

    If I’m hand signing a legal document, I prefer to sign it as “01JUN2025” or “01JUN25” if space is an issue.

    If the format is preselected and deviation isn’t allowed, I’ll just write it like everyone else does.

    Personally, I like dating things in ascending or descending order. Day month year, or year month day.

    • NONE@lemmy.worldOP
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      24 hours ago

      Personally, I like dating things in ascending or descending order

      Hey! Me too! 🤝

  • kmartburrito@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 days ago

      This is the only format that truly makes sense, as it is both unambiguous and, as you noted, sortable.

    • NONE@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 days ago

      What you say is interesting. Having a way of organizing time that suits your needs. That’s why I asked if there was any benefit in the way Americans (and apparently also Chinese) represent time.

      • ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com
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        2 days ago

        Interesting thing about how Chinese time is organized is locations are also stated big to small. Last names then first names etc.

          • ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com
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            2 days ago

            I mean the larger family name comes before the personal name. Implying a connection between number, place, and naming sequences

            • ghu@lemmy.ml
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              2 days ago

              Chinese is also weird imho. If I remember correctly, they put the details of an action first in a sentece and the verb that defines the action itself goes last with some exceptions.

              Hungarian comes to my mind which is similar and always follows the context first, details later rule. They use “yyyy.mm.dd.”, “family name first, given name last”, “country, city, street, street number order for locations”, and the word order of their grammar is similar too, details are always at the end of the sentence.

              • ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com
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                2 days ago

                You’re thinking of Japanese not Chinese. Chinese grammar is more similar to English.

                That’s interesting about Hungarian though!

    • Trent@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      This. I usually use MMDDYYYY when I’m dealing with other (US) people and ISO standard for my own stuff.

  • IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Because the month is bigger and provides more context on it’s own. You figure out the month first then place yourself within that scale.

    Example:

    “It’s May (immediately tells us the context of 31days, spring, etc.) It is the 30th, so there’s one day left in May”

    Vs

    “It’s the 30th (provides no context except that it’s not February). it’s may, so there’s one day left in May”

    So both lead to the same conclusion, the first way just gives the limiting parameter/most context first.

    Similar reasoning why the month is the primary separation on calendars.

    Another example that follow this same principle, you tell time HH/mm to provide the larger context first, not mm/HH.

    • red_concrete@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      you tell time HH/mm to provide the larger context first, not mm/HH.

      Except not everywhere does, at least in speech. Half past ten. Quarter to eight. Five past three.

      Although in the US I suppose you do say ten thirty, and seven forty-five? So at least you are consistent!

    • dan1101@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      This pretty much sums it up for me, knowing the month first conveys a lot of information. Then the specific day gives more precision, year you can often assume but it’s there in case it’s not what you expected.

  • sylver_dragon@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • marine_mustang@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      There is an American subculture teaching and using ISO 8601; the US military. They don’t call it that, but I learned later that’s what it is. They enforce YYYY-MM-DD on all documents.

  • Civil_Liberty@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    If you name your files YEAR-MONTH-DAY_Filename they be in chronological order when sorted by the name field.

    • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      That’s not a good explanation for the question, because the convention was established before computers.

        • Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          It sorts by what seems to me historically by relevance, i.e. which day is asked more often because it seems a more frequent timeframe for everyday use in a medieval society compared to the month (with the seasons as something in between those two).

          And I agree that since the digital age yyyy-mm–dd has significant advantages!

        • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          I don’t think that’s true; before computers people would get used to one way or another and it would have 0 impact on their ability to compare.

          • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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            2 days ago

            When you are searching for a file in a filing cabinet of a finance department, it’d be a nightmare if records were filed by month first and year after.

  • Montagge@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    Because the day doesn’t matter when you work every day between your three jobs that won’t give you 40 hours in order to not give you health insurance.

  • Paradachshund@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    I can’t say it matters to me that much what order it’s in, but that’s just the same order we say it in when fully written out. March 23, 2025. 03/23/2025.

  • harsh3466@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Am American and I hate the MM/DD/YY(YY) format. Unfortunately its what’s been taught and used as the standard date format for a long time.

    I much prefer the ISO standard of YYYY-MM-DD. It’s the superior format logically moving from the largest calendar unit to the smallest. Also superior for date ordering files.

  • milkisklim@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    It’s two less syllables to say “April Fourth” than “The Fourth of April”.

    That’s about the only advantage it has.

    Edit:

    I was thinking about this grammatically. English is an Adjective first language where the modifying adjective goes before the base noun.

    In my example, April is the adjective. It tells the reader what kind of Fourth it is.

    It’s at least a kind of logic.