3-2-23 🥳

If you're in a locale that celebrated palindrome day on February 3, I hope you had a good one!

why americans write the date like that

It's quite simple: because that's how we say it. March 2nd. 3-2.

In more formal contexts, it's not uncommon to say, e.g. "the 4th of July", but in casual conversation, it's always month-first. July 4th. December 25th. May 1st. February twenty-ninth, twenty-twenty-four. In a lot of languages, date-first is the way to go. That's why it makes sense to write the date first in those places.

Of course, when you're writing for an international audience (which we all are, to an extent) it's best to write it in a way that's totally unambiguous, especially for dates before the 12th of the month which could be read either way. My favorite method for casual writing is the three-letter month abbreviation. It's only one more character than writing the month numerically. Well, two if you include the period. Mar-02-23. Mar. 02. 02 Mar. for those outside the US.

For any situation where you want a computer to be able to put things in order, it's best to use ISO 8601 format. 2023-03-02. So month-first is technically the more bureaucratically correct way to do it. But in our everyday lives, do it the way that makes sense for the people you're writing for. None of us is wrong!

Anyway, go hang a salami; I'm a lasagna hog 🦝