Why Do Americans Write The Date Backwards?

[Harry]

They write month/day/year, instead of day/month/year which is the standard in Europe. This has become such a problem with dates on the internet that there's talk of introducing an international date standard. But why is it different in America?

[rekstout]

The speak dates in this manner too - all my American colleagues say "May 21st" rather than "the 21st of May" so it may be thatthey write them like the say them.
The other explanation is that sorting dates on a computer is easier if the date order is reversed (yy/mm/dd) and since we are often not concerned with year this could be another reason.

[firefly]

Your second answer, Rekstout doesn't hold much water. The Americans have been called July 4th the fourth of July for decades, long before computers. The French I think have the habit of 'the something of something', like they would say 'the question of firefly' instead of 'firefly's question'. Perhaps the Americans used this system to state date of month and then extended it to the month/day/year system?

[JohnPPotts]

Surely the French use the same system we do - Bastille day is "Quatorze Juillet" (apologies for spelling) and not "Juillet le Quatorze."

[Hamish]

Also Reksout, they dont write the date yy/mm/dd they write mm/dd/y as opposed to dd/mm/yy as in the UK. Ta Hamish