why do americans use such a counter-intuitive date format?

Question

And yet they still have their national holiday on the 4th of July, not July 4th.

You "write it how you say it" is a real chicken and egg answer.
And it matters because it's contradictory and therefore worthy of further investigation. This lack of inquiry is worrying in a people with so many troops dotted about the place.

The French also call the day after Bastille day quinze juillet, they don't swap format from one day to the next

Alexander. Your answer? What question is it in response to? Not mine, that's for sure.

Answer 1

Because they have to do everything differently!! You could also ask why they call football soccer even though the thing they call football is mostly played with hands...Could have called American football soccer or gee maybe just plain rugby if they were man enough to play without pads...

Answer 2

And it matters WHY? It's just more fun to say Fourth of July. The French say le quatorze juillet for their Bastille Day. Same thing.

Answer 3

I've often wondered the same thing. Especially since I started doing some work with companies over seas. Month, Day, Year just doesn't make sense when compared to Day, Month, Year.

7-11-06, It's July, it's the 11th day (of July), in 2006.
11-7-06, it's the 11th day, of July, in 2006.

Answer 4

Some people just think in reverse (for example, thinking that Bastille Day was the day of freedom from tyranny, when in fact the real tyrants were the ones who tore down the Bastille to liberate the throngs of prisoners it held -- if you can call seven people a throng).

Answer 5

It's a cultural thing. We tend to think of the Fourth of July more as a title, and less of a date. Sorry if it's confusing.

Answer 6

we say fourth of july as a holiday, but for dates we say september sixth, for example. we just write it the way we talk. it took me a while to get used to it when i moved here.
my real complaints are why don't they use celsius and the metric system. do they really need to be that unique so no one can understand them?

Answer 7

I tend to agree that the general date format in the U.S. is odd as the mdy format is not in order regarding lengths of time. I prefer to use the dmy format, but there's ISO's yyyy-mm-dd standard as well.

Answer 8

I don't know why they do it but maybe it's like the way we write time with the bigger thing (hour) first! for 25 past 3 we write 3:25 not 25:3!

Answer 9

We use our "counter-intuitive" date format because we are the world's only remaining economic, military, and social superpower. Plus, we invented the internet...

Answer 10

The answer is in the English language itself.
We dont say a "car blue", we say a "blue car".
We dont say a "person happy", we say a "happy person".