Why do Americans put the month first when writing the date?

Question

Just wondering why the write the date as month/day/year, seems odd to me. Wouldnt the natural progression be day/month/year?
Not asking for a debate as to which is better, just want to know why.

Answer 1

Not all Americans...our military uses the DD/MONTH/YY format.

Answer 2

I'm with you, the natural progression would be day/month/year. I've lived in several countries which use that progression, so I always have to think about it when I write month/day/year.

I sometimes get around it by writing it 15 June 2005. It's applications I have to watch out for. My get scratched out a lot.

Answer 3

This order is used in the United States and countries with U.S. influence (but the U.S. federal government sometimes uses day, month, year). England originally used day, month, year, then for a short while used month, day, year, and finally reverted to the original logical form (day, month, year) which was revived around 1900; the USA chose to stick with month, day, year, but did originally use day, month, year as the English did as can be noted from "the 4th of July" independence day. Canada officially uses the big endian convention, but all three conventions are used in practice.

Answer 4

It's a choice not all Americans do that. But the Declaration of Independence date had the actual month written out. etc. I write the month out for cosmetic reasons sometimes.

Answer 5

Chalk it up to personal preference and professional requirements. I believe that many Americans use the MM/DD/YY(YY) format because it's how it is spoken in our country and also how we are taught in our schools. However, government, military and many companies require the use of the DD/MM/YY(YY) format because it is most used world-wide. Both forms are prominently used, but it's becoming more common in the US for the forms of "17 June, 2006" or "June 16, 2006" so there's no confusion!

Answer 6

I do not know, I actually never considered it. I guess the same could be said why write the date day/month/year?

Answer 7

I'm not sure-I guess we are all taught that way in school when we are taught the months, and to put our names and the date at the top of the paper. The exceptions I have seen are military personnel.

Answer 8

According to Wikipedia, the UK wrote dates this way as well for a while. They reverted back to the current format, and the US kept using the M-D-Y format. See link.

Answer 9

Dukalink6000 is correct.

We'll probably all go to year-month-date as an increasing percentage of the population uses computers.

Answer 10

i don't know..isnt the progression is month/day/year there are days in the month and months in the year. the month is greater than a day and a year greater than a month....I think I have something there just having trouble wording it lol

Answer 11

It is because that is how we say it. When we speak, we like to make things as short as possible. It is quicker to say "May third" than it is to say "the third of May". Just chalk it up to us lazy Americans. We will use anything we can to make things faster and easier. We make everything into some bastardized shorthand.