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Date formats around the world

Which date format do you use?


  • Total voters
    16

SRSAutistic

Active Member
There are 3 different types of date formats used around the world: month-day-year (MM/DD/YYYY), day-month-year (DD/MM/YYYY), and year-month-day (YYYY-MM-DD). The US uses month-day-year, which is not used by any other country. The rest of the world uses day-month-year, and Asia uses year-month-day. The ISO 8601 (International Standards Organization) date format is YYYY-MM-DD.

Canada is the only country to use all three date formats which can cause confusion as the official languages of Canada are English and French. Canada is influenced by US, UK, and French culture, so using all three formats can confuse anyone. Canada uses MM/DD/YYYY in English as it is influenced by the US (biggest trading partner), but it also uses DD/MM/YYYY due to its British roots. As French is the official language of the province of Québéc, it uses DD/MM/YYYY. This is why the Canadian government recommends YYYY-MM-DD as it removes all confusion and is understood by anyone regardless of language barriers.

For example, today’s date (December 31st, 2022) would be written as “12/31/2022” in the US, “31/12/2022” in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, and “2022-12-31” in Asia. This can cause confusion around the world as when the day number is below 12, there is a 36% chance of confusion. When the month and day numbers are the same, or the day number is over 12, there is no confusion.

What happens if you have a date such as “02/01/2023”? I would say “February 1st, 2023”, and you would say “2nd January 2023”. A date such as “2023-02-01” is interpreted as “2023 February 1”, which is understood worldwide. This is why it is better to write out the month when writing the date as the date can be understood by anyone regardless of the format.
 
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I'm British and I use DD/MM/YYYY and it's confusing to see it written another way. If an American writes 02/01/2023, I'll think it means 2nd January until I remember that they are American.

At least with 01/01/2023, there's no chance of confusion.
 
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The date formats are confusing if they are written in their numeric format (12/31/2022 or 31/12/2022), but the formats are not confusing in their word formats (December 31st, 2022 or 31st December 2022). If I write 02/01/2023, I will mean February 1st, but you might think 2nd January. If I write 2023-02-01, I will mean 2023-February-1 and there is no confusion. This is why I use YYYY-MM-DD on my computers and phones. I am used to all three date formats.
 
I would say “February 1st, 2023”, and you would say “2nd January 2023”.
This is reflected in spoken language as well. I would say 1st of February, I would never say February 1st.

The asian system is much better for storing files on your computer, especially with things like photos. Using the YY/MM/DD system stacks everything alphabetically as well as numerically.

Also handy in software deveolpment, version numbers are a rubbish system to use, a date system is much more practical, eg: linux-minetest-kit-190620
 
This is reflected in spoken language as well. I would say 1st of February, I would never say February 1st.

The asian system is much better for storing files on your computer, especially with things like photos. Using the YY/MM/DD system stacks everything alphabetically as well as numerically.

Also handy in software deveolpment, version numbers are a rubbish system to use, a date system is much more practical, eg: linux-minetest-kit-190620
In ISO 8601, the international standard, the date format is written like this: 2022-12-31T22:23:00 -0800. It uses YYYY-MM-DD and the 24 hour clock. To convert from 24 hour clock to 12 hour clock, just subtract 12 when the time is after 12:59. From 00:00 to 00:59, add 12.
 
I'm used to using the 24 hour clock instead of trying to translate it back to 12 hours. I also live in an unusual timezone, one of the few with a half hour designation - GMT+9:30.
 
I'm used to using the 24 hour clock instead of trying to translate it back to 12 hours. I also live in an unusual timezone, one of the few with a half hour designation - GMT+9:30.
I live in California, which uses UTC-7 in the summer (daylight saving time/DST) and UTC-8 in the winter. Currently, it is 22:36 (10:36pm) for me which is 16:06 (4:06pm) for you (next day). Happy New Year!
 
And a Happy New Year to you too. I didn't include daylight savings in my post to save any confusion, we're currently at GMT+10:30. As I'm writing it's ten past five in the afternoon.

We don't have daylight savings in every state, and it's very counterproductive in the tropics. Who wants sunrise at 8:00 am?
 
I personally prefer YYYY-MM-DD for easy sorting, as with Outdated, but I use whatever the counterparty wants, which also includes MMM-DD-YYYY (e.g. JAN 01 2023) and DD-MMM-YYYY (01 JAN 2023).

Regardless of the format, they would all be read here as "January 1st, 2023".

Day first readings (e.g. "Fourth of July") are considered rather unorthodox where I am.
 
YYMMDD for program files.
YYMMDD.HHMMSS for receipts (24-hour).
MM/DD/YYYY is our local standard.
Sometimes, I revert back to the military standard, DDMMMYYYY.
 
Ya know, I gotta say, it's amazing to me that you're able to absorb and fully recall all of these details.

Like, even with subjects I know a lot about, when speaking my sentences tend to degrade into "Buffy speak" (a term I got from TVTropes).

Even with like the paints I'm using lately it's like, "Okay, got this sorta flat brush whatsit, gonna use that in the silver mystery goo, that should do it".

All these things have proper technical terms but I can never quite remember what it is.

But you're able to recall all these small details with what always seems like no effort. Impressive, I say.
 
We use day-month-year here. And no am/pm. That used to confuse me when I was a kid, the Americans and their am/pm and month-day-year.
 
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I use the month-day-year format because that's what people in my country use. It's confusing sometimes if I use the day-month-year format.

I do use the 24 hour clock, instead of the 12 hour clock. I have to remember to convert whenever people ask me the time, which is a pain.
 
It took me so long to learn the date system since my birthday is 11/11 (-_-) I finally memorized Month-Day-Year, but I don’t know why anyone decided to do it like that. It’s not intuitive.
 
I use the month-day-year format because that's what people in my country use. It's confusing sometimes if I use the day-month-year format.

I do use the 24 hour clock, instead of the 12 hour clock. I have to remember to convert whenever people ask me the time, which is a pain.
I just intuitively convert the time format from the 24-hour clock to the 12-hour clock when talking to other people. In emails, I used to just state the 12-hour clock (1:09pm), but ever since I started interacting with the autistic community, I have changed back to the 24-hour clock with the 12-hour clock in parentheses. Right now, it is 13:09 (1:09pm) for me (Los Angeles time).
 
I just intuitively convert the time format from the 24-hour clock to the 12-hour clock when talking to other people. In emails, I used to just state the 12-hour clock (1:09pm), but ever since I started interacting with the autistic community, I have changed back to the 24-hour clock with the 12-hour clock in parentheses. Right now, it is 13:09 (1:09pm) for me (Los Angeles time).
It's not really hard for me to convert it to the 12-hour format, but my first response is to always tell people the time in the 24-hour format and they always look at me like I'm insane before I correct myself. Then they still act like I'm crazy when I explain that I use that format (I live in the U.S. where almost no one uses it). lmao
 
I hate both the date/month/year format and the 24-hour clock. If you are going to use that format, at least write of the month then I don't mind. But I will always despise the 24-hour clock. I remember buying a crappy sounding boombox that had the time in 24 hours. A few times I thought my shows were on when I saw 18:00 thinking it was 8:00. The worst was 20:00 thinking it was 11:00. I threw it away and got a better sounding boombox with a separate 12-hour alarm clock /w no radio, just a clock. Of course, this was before I had a smartphone which I defaulted to the easier 12-hour month/date/year setting even though my lock screen defaulted to the crappy standard I had to google it to fix it.
 
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