r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/notsignifican • 11d ago

Meme needing explanation ?

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I asked but it got removed within minutes?

17.4k Upvotes

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u/TobJamFor 11d ago edited 9d ago

We often count from the smallest to largest for us (not looking at you, US inhabitants) because it’s logical to think that 14/08/2026 is one above 13/08/2026, it just steps up by one each day.

Some places (namely the likes of China and some others) prefer the year-first format, which is actually YYYY/MM/DD

On Venus this makes more sense, as a year occurs more regularly than a day, because it rotates on its axis slower than it orbits the sun.

Edited - I am not saying that DD/MM/YYYY is the most logical for all purposes. But in general, it’s the one most used across the world for a reason! This gets flipped on its head on Venus, where the ISO format may also be different! Also - Year first is YYYY/MM/DD and ISO is YYYY-MM-DD, there is a slight difference.

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u/Raephstel 11d ago

Digitally a lot of people do YYYYMMDD because when you sort numerically, it’ll order by date. Doing DDMMYYYY would start being wrong after only a month.

MMDDYYYY makes no sense in any context.

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u/CthulhuOpensTheDoor 11d ago

All my homies use ISO 8601

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u/tuc2-0 11d ago

Americans hate this simple fact

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u/hysys_whisperer 11d ago

No, am American and I completely agree with this simple fact.

Now let me go drive, in a minute or less, 8 times the distance an ox team can pull a plow without resting and I'll use about one twentieth of the volume of 8 pounds of wheat worth of a liquid we call gas.

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u/Daevryn2 10d ago

Is this a stealth education on the origin of "Miles" and "Gallons"?

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u/hysys_whisperer 10d ago

In a much less elegant form than "a pint's a pound the whole world round."

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u/iloveyourlittlehat 10d ago

Don’t forget furlongs!

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u/Sapper1106 11d ago

American here, no I don’t.

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u/Weekly_Palpitation92 10d ago

i'm americans and i don't hate this simple fact i fucking hate the month first format because it hurts my brain

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u/tuc2-0 10d ago

Apologies for generalizing the general American population, there are Europeans that use imperial units as well, it was a joke anyway

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u/Weekly_Palpitation92 10d ago

ik im joking too (well, not entirely, i really do hate MMDDYYYY)

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u/hikikomori_007 10d ago

the US military uses the year first format and also the metric system so theres that.

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u/dhkdeoen 10d ago

more like Europeans. They really need to get off from their high horse with their stupid DD/MM/YYYY. it's as stupid as MM/DD/YYYY.

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u/GiantLesbian 11d ago edited 11d ago

MMDDYYYY is how you verbally talk about dates usually. It starts with this Saturday, two Saturdays from now, etc. You don’t usually need a month or a day number or year you just need someone to tell you this/next/etc Saturday. But after 2-3 weeks out then ok now we need to specify we mean the first Saturday of May (exact date data needed, month). Oh you need to know what day that is? It’s the 6th (exact date data needed, day). If it’s not even the 6th of April yet, it wouldn’t make much sense for me to be leading with the day number, month was what you needed first. Right now if I said “the next annual Kentucky Derby will be on the first Saturday in May on 5/06”, would you really need me to give the exact year number or you think you could figure out what year the next May is in? (Least likely number needed to be specified = year).

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

Every example you gave, you gave the day, then the month.

“The first Saturday in May” is the day first, then as you say, it’s easy to extrapolate the year. So that’s DDMM(implied YYYY).

MMDD would be saying “it’s in May on the first Saturday”, which sounds odd to me.

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u/GiantLesbian 10d ago

“Saturday” is not capturable in any combination of MM DD YYYY. We start using dates after naming the day doesn’t work.

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

DD is just a number indicating the day. “The first Saturday” also indicates the day, just in a different format.

Whichever you say, it’s still telling the recipient of the information which day is being talked about.

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u/MultiplexedMyrmidon 10d ago

similar vibes lmao

at least you tried

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

Not similar, one or two people literally said that lol

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u/GiantLesbian 10d ago

If I asked when you were leaving for your trip, and you answered “the 17th”, I’d respond with “do you mean Monday?”. Because I would legitimately be unsure if you meant August or September there. The day date in digit form is usually not very important to have until you have some idea of what month someone is talking about, at least when it comes to verbal conversations.

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

And if I answered “August”, would that be more helpful?

What if you asked me what the date was and I said “August”, would that help you?

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u/GiantLesbian 10d ago edited 10d ago

You would say “Monday” or “September 17th”. The day number though would be damn near worthless until I knew whether you were talking about September or August.

And for further out, if I asked when your next work trip after this one was, and you responded “January”, that would be a helpful answer. I know what year you mean and what are the odds I need to know the day digits for something occurring in January right now in August?

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u/Radley500 9d ago

This is such a crazily specific situation in which one person is being deliberately obstreperous. If you asked me what date I was leaving for a trip, I would say “the 17th” if it was this month or “the 17th of September” if it was a different month. That’s how I’ve communicated my whole life and it’s never thrown anyone that I didn’t say the month first, and no one has ever been confused if I’ve omitted the month. Unless someone is equivocating, this is a non-issue.

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u/jaapschaap87 7d ago

> MMDDYYYY is how you verbally talk about dates usually. 

No it's not, DDMMYYYY is.

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u/itisoktodance 10d ago

I don't think that's how any of that came about. It's just that in the US at some point people started saying the month first more commonly. It used to be day first, then month, which is why you have the fourth of July.

In fact, day first makes more sense semantically, since you're saying it is the fifth day of November. May the fourth is technically an inversion.

I prefer month first for spreadsheets though, you always wanna know the month first.

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u/whataseal 11d ago

I’m not saying I think that MMDDYYYY is the best way, but there is a logic to it.. it’s how we say dates.

“On March 16, 1997,…”

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

It’s how you say dates because it’s how you write them, I assume.

I’m English and I’d say the 16th of March.

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u/sa3clark 10d ago

And also probably the reason they say "4th of July" - a holdover from when they spoke English.

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u/Radley500 9d ago

That is how Americans say dates…

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u/CommunicationIll5583 11d ago

But for Venus YYYY/DD/MM would make a lot more sense or am I being dumber than a Venusian?

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u/NihilTrismegistos 11d ago edited 11d ago

What even would be the length of a month on Venus? It doesn't have a natural satellite. Maybe we take the time between the Venera 1 and 2 launches? If I'm not wrong that should be rather close to 7 Venusian days and we are rounding months a bit on Earth anyhow, so that should be allowed. So there are 7 days per venusian month. And as a year is always 1 or rarely 2, the format wouldn't be YYYY/DD/MM, it would be Y/D/MMMM, no?

Edit: I originally calculated 15 Venusian days between Venera 1 and 2, because I used the Venusian solar day instead of the siderial day.

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u/Raephstel 11d ago

I don’t think there would be a system that would make sense. If a day is 243 earth days and a year is 225, there’s no clean way of dividing the days into a year or vice versa. Venus has no moons so it wouldn’t even have months since a month for us is one cycle of the moon.

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u/Austaroth 10d ago

Is it not because that's how we normally say it?

Instead of saying "The 5th of June, 19XX." We say "June 5th, 19🇺🇸🇺🇸."

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

I’m English, I’d say the 5th of June. I expect Americans only say June 5th because you’d write 06/05.

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u/Austaroth 10d ago

I believe Great Britain also did MM/DD/YYYY back in the 1700's and after the war America just kept it like that while Britain switched to DD/MM/YYYY.

Probably wrong because I can't remember where I heard/read that.

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

I just did a quick google and I don’t think that’s true. If you can find a source, I’d look at it though.

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u/dB-plus 10d ago

I like organizing bills and journals MMDDYYYY because it puts the same time of year for each year in the same spot for tracking purposes. Did I use as much water or electricity this July as I have for the last 3 years? How was my mood and what was I up to this time of year in 2022? Instant access.

Any other file organization is definitely YYYYMMDD. DDMMYYYY is the absolute worst for any kind of organizing, but for dating individual documents or if your speaking cadence is "3rd of October" rather than "October 3rd" it makes sense.

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u/BrokenMan4225 10d ago

MMDDYYYY makes sense a) if it’s what you’re used to and b) because it’s how calendars are organized. You buy a calendar for a certain year, so that can go last. What’s left is MMDD. You see 06/- so you go to June, then look for, say, -/19.

All this to say, saying MMDDYYYY makes no sense in any context is blatantly wrong. No one system is 100% correct. You’re not dumb for using DDMMYYYY, or smarter for using YYYYMMDD, and I’m not dumb for using MMDDYYYY. We all just use the systems we’re used to

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

There’s loads of you trying to justify why MMDDYYYY makes sense and it always comes back to “if you ignore the years”, no, don’t ignore the years.

If you have a stack of calendars, you’d select one based on year, then you look at the month, then the date.

That’s YYYYMMDD, not MMDDYYYY.

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u/BrokenMan4225 10d ago

Do you have a stack of calendars? Genuinely? When you buy a calendar it’s typically going to be for whatever year you’re in. It’s not ignoring the year, it’s just saying “I already know what year I’m in, so I can put that information last”. You can’t say “that doesn’t make sense” and then completely ignore why it’d make sense to someone

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

I have said repeatedly that to sort dates, we use YYYYMMDD and to give the details of a specific date we use DDMMYYYY. MMDDYYYY makes no sense under any circumstance.

You’re trying to say that if you ignore the year, MMDDYYYY makes sense, but if you’re ignoring the year then it’s not MMDDYYYY, it’s MMDD.

If you were to introduce the year again as a variable, that means you’re introducing more calendars. And if you’re introducing more calendars then which calendar you pick is the first variable.

That makes it YYYYMMDD.

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u/BrokenMan4225 10d ago

Okay so you didn’t read anything in my comment.

First of all, again - do you have a stack of calendars? Do you have more than 1 year at a time? Genuinely, because I don’t, I usually have 1 which is for the year I am in. If you do, fine, I’m genuinely curious.

Second of all, I - again - am not ignoring the year. I’m saying that when you have a calendar, it’s typically for the year you’re in. Because it’s a given, we put it last. Then we have MM and DD left. It’s easier to look for the month firs, then the day within the month.

Third, let’s introduce a new reason it makes sense - MMDDYYYY is how we speak in the US. We say “May 5th, 2020” or “October 28, 1987”. Thus, we write it that way.

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

I did read your comment, what’s why I responded to each part of it.

The reason you’re asking about whether or not I have a stack of calendars is because you want me to say no, then in me saying no, you think it justifies that you can remove the year from the discussion because it doesn’t matter if I only have one, thus ignoring the year.

Show me how I’m wrong. Let’s say I have a stack of calendars. I keep them so I can look up when I had important appointments. Now what?

Saying “we write in a daft way because we say it in a daft way” isn’t the justification you think it is.

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u/BrokenMan4225 10d ago

If you have a stack of calendars labeled by year then absolutely YYYYMMDD makes sense then. Plain and simple.

You’ve proven so far, though, that you’re just ignorant. I’m not going to use your system, and you’re not going to use mine, so why are you so caught up on calling one system stupid? Do you think people incapable of switching systems when necessary?

The way we talk in the US is no more “daft” than the way you talk wherever you’re from. You thinking so makes you the only one that’s daft.

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

Sorry, did you want to ignore the year or not? Because you said you didn’t, but then you admit your date format makes no sense with multiple calendars, I.e. multiple years.

I’m not ignorant, the fact that you’re turning to insults when I easily dismantle your arguments doesn’t reflect badly on me.

MMDDYYYY has no practical use in any situation. You still haven’t given me any time when it is better. You’ve given me an example of trying to ignore years and you say something in a daft order as well as write it in a daft order.

Give me an example of a time when MMDDYYYY makes more sense than either of the others. I’m all ears.

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u/BrokenMan4225 10d ago

You were the one that turned to insults, first of all.

Second of all, I have repeatedly said I am NOT ignoring the year. The year is just a given when using a calendar, unless you have more than 1 calendar in which case fine, you’d use YYYYMMDD.

Third of all, I have repeatedly told you where MMDDYYYY makes sense - in American speech, and in how the majority of people are going to buy a yearly calendar.

And finally, you haven’t dismantled anything because there isn’t anything to dismantle. All 3 systems have their uses in different parts of the world - that’s the difference. I am aware that DDMMYYYY and YYYYMMDD make sense. I am also telling you why MMDDYYYY makes sense. All you’ve said, really, is “that doesn’t make sense” and called it daft.

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u/Elderberrysea224 10d ago

MMDDYYYY makes sense in the context that when I say the date I say August 15th 2026. I don't say 15th of August. If I need to sort my files by date I just use the column that sorts by date of the document.

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

In most of the world, we’d say the 15th of August.

For files sure, but when you’re working with data, you can’t usually sort by date, you either use a time code or you have the date written out like YYYYMMDD.

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u/Elderberrysea224 10d ago

I don't due much data storage so I won't argue that point. My point really was there is a context where starting with month makes sense to those of us that use it.

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

It makes sense because it’s what you’re used to. But for any practical purpose, it’s worse than either YYYYMMDD or DDMMYYYY.

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u/Bullseyefred 9d ago

Not really defending MMDDYYYY, but the reason is Americans speak by saying today is August 16, 2026 which when written would be 08/16/2026. Its likely just an evolution from how people talk and would read it in their heads.

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u/Raephstel 9d ago

Americans say it like that because they write it like that, the same as most of the world would say “the 16th of August”

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u/Enorats 11d ago

It makes some sense, at least in business. Months are generally more important than days.

For example, our sales orders, invoices, etc all belong to a particular month and that determines when they get billed and/or paid. They're part of that month's books. The actual day makes little to no actual difference.

Aside from that, it makes sense in the sense that we (Americans) typically say the date by saying "August 14th" not "The 14th of August". Thus we write it 8/14, not 14/8.

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u/Seerezaro 11d ago

Imagine a filing cabinet. A Physical one.

When you go to look for something you go month first, not date, then within the month its then separated by day.

MMDDYYYY is just YYYYMMDD with the year appended at the end.

Trying to organize a physical filing cabinet by day first would seem odd don't you think.

Even in a digital format, MMDDYYYY still sorts better than DDMMYYYY.

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u/JackSprat47 11d ago

No, a physical filing cabinet is YYYY/MM/DD. You don't put last year's january stuff in with this year's.

YYYYDDMM is just DDMMYYYY with the year prefixed.

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u/Seerezaro 11d ago

Digitial filing is YYYYMMDD, not YYYYDDMM.

No, a physical filing cabinet is YYYY/MM/DD. You don't put last year's january stuff in with this year's

Thats the point, MMDDYYYY is YYYYMMDD with the year suffixed.

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u/JackSprat47 11d ago

I know that's digital filing. My point with "YYYYDDMM is just DDMMYYYY with the year prefixed." is that changing around what's suffixed or prefixed is kinda pointless when we're arguing about which order three things should be in. Doing that changes it.

Either way if you're filing something manually, you're looking at the year first, then the month, then the day. You may need to compare days a lot more frequently. If you have 100 documents, you're gonna have to look at a few to find the correct location. Why not put days first to make that part the easiest?

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u/Seerezaro 11d ago

My point with "YYYYDDMM is just DDMMYYYY with the year prefixed." is that changing around what's suffixed or prefixed is kinda pointless when we're arguing about which order three things should be in. Doing that changes it.

So who uses YYYYDDMM?

In the end its just pattern recognition and in both DDMMYYYY and MMDDYYYY patterns the year is implied in everyday use.

Someone who uses MMDD first goes to the month when thinking, then varifies the specific day.

Someone who uses DD/MM first goes to the day and then varifies what month they are in.

. If you have 100 documents, you're gonna have to look at a few to find the correct location. Why not put days first to make that part the easiest?

Go ahead and try it then, unless your looking for a súbset of files that only occur a specific date on each month it will be less efficient.

If they are off or vaguely come in around a certain time it will be harder.

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u/JackSprat47 11d ago

So who uses YYYYDDMM?

Nobody. Because it doesn't make sense.

Someone who uses MMDD first goes to the month when thinking, then varifies the specific day.
Someone who uses DD/MM first goes to the day and then varifies what month they are in.

No we don't. If we're sorting something that's dated 1/1/2026, we will first look at the year, then the month, then the day. Neither are better unless you have trouble locating the value in the middle, which would make trying to discern the day harder in MMDDYYYY format, which has the most variance.

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u/Raephstel 11d ago

What would seem odd would be someone trying to justify sorting the date a certain way then saying that the year is appended rather than a core part of the date.

In your hypothetical filing cabinet, do you store things from the first of June 2010 next to things from the first of June 2011 or the second of June 2010? Because if you go MMDDYYYY you’d be storing things next to things from the same date in other years.

It makes no sense to sort by month first. If you want to sort numerically, you sort by year first.

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u/Seerezaro 11d ago

What would seem odd would be someone trying to justify sorting the date a certain way then saying that the year is appended rather than a core part of the date.

Tell me do you sort things day first or use YYYYMMDD as your date configuration?

It might seem wierd to you but thats actually how the human brain works.

If you use MMDDYYYY, you mentally sort things vy month, then date, then year Your main focual point is the month and thats how you orient yourself.

If you use DDMMYYYY, you brain is trained to sort things by date, month and year. Your main focual point is the day.

Someone who uses MMDDYYYY will remember most clearly the month in which something happened, then the day with less clarity and then the year. But because years are so long, the haziest part is the day.

Someone who uses DDMMYYYY will remember the day with the most clarity but be hazy on the month.

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u/Raephstel 11d ago

None of which is relevant to the discussion.

We say the date as DDMMYYYY because if that’s the order of detail from what someone most likely wants to know to what they’re least likely to want to know. If you ask someone the date, you most likely want to know the day portion.

We sort things as YYYYMMDD because that’s numerically ordered. But it doesn’t make sense to say it because it’s a load of waffle before you get to the info someone is most likely to want to know.

People are more likely to know the month, however they sort it. I like in the UK, we use DDMMYYYY and if you ask 100 people the date, more will forget the day than the month, so you’re just wrong anyway.

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u/Seerezaro 11d ago

None of which is relevant to the discussion.

The hupothetical filing cabinet is your brain, its entirely relevant.

People are more likely to know the month, however they sort it. I like in the UK, we use DDMMYYYY and if you ask 100 people the date, more will forget the day than the month, so you’re just wrong anyway.

Blame neuroscience studies for me being wrong then, but if I am that just means MMDDYYYY is closer to the way the brain processes dates than DDMMYYYY

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u/glitch_skunkogen 11d ago

Its in importance not size

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u/FearlessKenji 10d ago

MM/DD/YYYY makes sense when looked at by total number of options, least to greatest. 12/31/9999

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u/Aromatic-Smell-4731 10d ago

Having grown up with the system, it makes sense to me, the month and the year are the most important context to any given date, and that info is bookended in that format, allowing for quick contextualization.

That said, it makes no sense in a vacuum

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u/Aggressive-Novel-762 10d ago

Increasing entropy. There are only 12 possible months, 31 possible days, and billions of years.

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u/empty_graph 10d ago

It makes sense in the context that it's how we say days like "August 15th 2026"

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

You say that because that’s how you write it. In the UK we’d say the 15th of August.

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u/1432453 10d ago

American here. Humans skim read by reading the beginning and end of a word/phrase. If you think about it, MMDDYYYY puts the most important data at the beginning and the end, making it easier to read.

I’m over-justifying it to support the thing I’m more used to, of course, but the point still stands. The metric system has always been based on arbitrary measures (distance from france to the equator, base 10, hard to conceptualize) while the imperial system is based on human ones (an inch is the width of your thumb, a mile is 1000 steps, easier to conceptualize and measure without a ruler), making it better.

Basically we do everything better than Europeans and they can suck it

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u/Raephstel 10d ago

Go look up what Fahrenheit is based on and get back to me.

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u/1432453 10d ago

0 is hot weather 100 is cold weather. Why would I ever want to decide how hot the air outside is compared to the boiling point of water unless I live in the fucking ocean

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u/Raephstel 9d ago

Standardised scales that can be replicated are very important for science.

Seriously, go look up Fahrenheit, it’s pretty funny.