Set the clock, Lincoln

[BettyO]

Quote:Does anyone know wherein the American habit of placing month before day when writing the date origins?

Eva, I did a bit of research and here is what I found out to be one of the best answers online - apparently we Americans just like to be different! But this does make sense in a somewhat silly way!

A good deal of our "backward-ness" stems from the time of the Revolutionary War, at which time we were ardently trying to break away from the British and wean ourselves out from under the rule of the monarchy. So in utter rebellion of common English ways, a good lot of English traditions were done backwards, in sorts, to mock the crown.

One way was to run horse races counterclockwise, as opposed to clockwise, another was to switch the order of a written date to month-day-year; although, most of Europe tends to write the date in the same manner....

http://answers.google.com/answers/thread...46354.html

We also drive our cars "on the wrong side of the road!" One usually drives a carriage sitting on the right side of the driver's seat - so....we had to be different and use the LEFT side of the car....and therefore the "Wrong side of the road!"

Therefore, the Brits are correct in using the old holdover from carriage driving - we just changed things around apparently.....