Why do americans write the date in a nonsensical order, i.e. not from biggest to smallest or smallest to biggest unit of time?
it's based on the way it is spoken. the year is last because it is usually the least important in conversation, and the reason it is month-day and not day-month is because it is fewer syllables to say month-day. this combination of circumstances is what resulted in the date format. you might think this creates an imperfect logistical outcome, but it is important to remember that when dealing with computers and numerical sorting, it is done in the logistically correct way. have you checked out the file names of my archived questions pages, or the file names of any of the items on the notes or reality pages