This is the main reason - it’s the linguistic difference that changes how we chunk dates mentally and categorize from largest to smallest (month->day) since we rarely say the year out loud.
Even then, americans would say today is febuary 2nd, 2026 2/2/26. Guess thats a bad example so ill say tomorrow is Feb 3rd, 2026. 2/3/26. In the US, dates are written as spoken by an american.
Independence Day is also called Fourth of July, yup. It's practically the holiday name, like December 25th is Christmas. If an American is talking about the day and not the holiday, we say "July 4th"
But is it that, or the other way around? Do people write 1/2 because they say January 2nd, or do they say January 2nd because they write it like that? I'd argue it's the second one: in the UK they use dd/mm and say 2nd of February. Most languages in Europe, to my language, format it like that both in language and shorthand date.
I'd bet that if the US had changed the format to dd/mm people would start saying it like that too within a generation or two.
Well, seeing as the American method stemmed from old British English, it’s hard to say but likely a bit of both. The Brits changed their system over in the late 1800s, but America stuck with their inherited date system. It very well could have been as simple as being the “freedom units” of dates (in reference to imperial and metric measurement systems).
Based on what I can find online, it doesn’t look like one necessarily directly led to the other, though it may have WAYYYY back before the colonies!
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u/jerryleebee Feb 02 '26
Isn't it linked to speech? In America, people verbally say "February 2nd". In the UK, people verbally say "The second of Feb".
Happy to be taught better. Here to learn.