Why mm/dd/yy ?

[magician]

I wondered if anyone knows why the american system begins with the month,as opposed to the day?-Well the weather forecast is grim-and idle thoughts predominate.

Cheers Frank

[GordonCopestake]

Perhaps the month is considered more important than the day? But then in that case it should be yy/mm/dd which in my head is much more logical. Julian dates all the way!

[Black Shuck]

A close friend of mine who is American (lived in UK 30+ years) still says "March 17th" when I would say "17th of March"????

Bill£

[orion f6.3]

they start with the largest number, which in maths would be correct. ie 2007 03 17 09:58:06

[MartinB]

And Americans always talk about the 4th of July don't they. So what's going on. I think they're up to something!

[FLO]

They also drive on the right and are a nation of coffee drinkers .... mysterious

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

I thought they drove on the wrong side of the road?

Captain Chaos

[The Warthog]

A close friend of mine who is American (lived in UK 30+ years) still says "March 17th" when I would say "17th of March"????

Bill£

I think you've got it!

In Canada, nobody can make up their minds. Officially, in the Federal Government, it's DD/MM/YYYY, except that for some programs it's YYYYMMDD, and some American-made programs force us to use MM/DD/YYYY. My birthday is the 3rd of March, so I could never remember which it was supposed to be.