this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If it’s a file I want sorted by date the top is good. If I am talking about a date and spelling it out August the 9th of 2023 makes the most sense and seems natural, and if it’s a personal memo or date label on food I just use 08/09 with the zeros so I know it isn’t a fraction unless it’s frozen or shelf stable for long term storage where the year would be useful to know at which point it becomes 8/9/23

I thought everybody used different date formats based on need.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In UK we always say 9th of August 2023, ie the way our dates are written and i would say is more natural haha. Maybe Americans find it more natural the other way around because your dates are other way around. If you use the date system the uk has maybe it would sound more natural to speak perhaps.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The way I see it, the US just writes it the way it's spoken. "August 9th, 2023" vs. "the 9th of August, 2023".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, the US just chose this order and speaks it the same way. I don't speak it this way, you're just used to it (just like everyone is to the way they speak it)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, but in proper English, as spoken in England, we would say "9th of August, not August the 9th"

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The first and the last date format are terrible because you can confuse the day of the month with the number of the month.

I only like date formats where it's not possible to confuse any field, like 8 Aug 2023. I minimize ambiguity.

If the date is in a file name, I make an exception using 2023-08-09 such that a string sort is equal to a date sort.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

For actually displaying dates to others, I agree that spelling out the month is absolutely preferred. But if space is limited, you're somewhat required to pick a very shortened format, and the US version is dumb, even if that's what you should use when displaying in that locale.

But for working with dates on computers, year-month-day works great, because it's still human readable, is naturally sortable, and makes it easier for serialization.

The first one is conventionally never year-day-month, and if anyone ever sent me a date of 2023-17-08, I would respond with, "What the hell?! Are you being evil on purpose?"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Canada moment

[–] illectrility 2 points 1 year ago

This triggers on so many levels. Why do Americans hate logic

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Oh no! A country uses a different date format, the horror!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

These are the right dates

[–] cloudy1999 4 points 1 year ago

I like to think of the American style as machete ordering for dates.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I don't know why you wanted to know year before month or day, I use dd/mm/yyyy sometime I didn't even use yyyy just dd/mm because day change most frequent then month then year

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

🧐 4 Days ago

[–] Jyek 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Alright, then I guess change the way you read a clock too... My day to day use doesn't include the year at all. Just mm/dd

[–] adriaan 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why change the way you read a clock? year/month/day hour:minute:second

You would never read a clock as minute:second:hour, which is analagous to how Americans phrase dates.

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