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The European date format is something that creates a lot of confusion with visitors from the US. American standards, European date format can cause mix ups and problems with everything from arranging meeting times to running software. Most Americans will be used to the date format that puts the month before the day. In the European date format however the month and day are the other way around, e. This then causes difficulty for those arranging to meet on that day, as an American visiting from overseas might write it in their diary under the 12th March and thus be very early for their appointment. European date format can only cause this misunderstanding when the date is before the 13th of that month.

The reason for this is that there are only 12 months, thus if one of the numbers is above 13 you can deduce whether the writer is using US or European date format. 2010’ has to be written using US date format as there is no 20th month. While this European date format is unusual for visitors, it is actually the US date format which is different with the majority of the countries in the world using European date format over the American counterpart. The only countries that do not share the European date format in fact are the US, Philippines, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, Canada and Belize.

The European date format is way much easier to understand. I don’t know why the american date format is different from the european date format and how they managed to choose it. Hehe, I got tricked a couple of times because of this. I always set my date format to be the european date format. However, a friend of mine made me a prank and switched it from the american format.