When is 10/8/12?
Is it October 8, 2021?
Is it August 10, 2012?
Or is it August 12, 2010?
I grew up in Spain and used to see and write down dates as day, month, and year—say, 15/10/24 for the fifteenth of October 2024.
In the US, the month goes first.
10/15/24 also represents October 15, 2024.
Digital systems put the year first, then format dates in human-readable forms adapted to regional patterns.
This means you’ll see month/day/year in the United States region or day/month/year for Europe.1
For illustration, you can think of programming languages using the letters d for day (15), m for month, y for year, and other letters for other datetime components.
These codes allow programs to display present, past, and future dates to humans.
I caption sketches by hand and prefix the name of digital scans with yymmdd2—the year, month, and day when I draw them, which lets me browse drawings chronologically.
This often confuses people because dates appear flipped.3
10.01.18 may be interpreted as January 10, 2018, in Spain and October 1, 2018, in the US, whereas it represents January 18, 2010.
Next time you see one of my drawings, remember it’s year, month, and day.
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