Slashes are a common calendar date separator used across many countries and by some standards such as the Common Log Format used by web servers . Depending on context , it may be in the form Day/Month/Year , Month/Day/Year , or Year/Month/Day . If only two elements are present , they typically denote a day and month in some order . For example , 9/11 is a common American way of writing the date September 11 and has become shorthand for the attacks on New York and Washington , DC , which occurred on a day Britons write as 11/9/2001 . Owing to the ambiguity across cultures , the practice of using only two elements to denote a date is sometimes proscribed
attacks on New York and Washington , DC
September 11 attacks
Slash (punctuation)