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For example, my friend's anniversary is on 3rd August (03/08/2016-dd/mm/yyyy). If I interchange the Month and Day digit and write 08/03/2016 meaning 8th March, is there any special word for this kind of date in English? Like 'Reverse Date' or something. Ignoring the dates after 12th.

Editing: I am not confused about date formats here. Think it like, If I want to wish my friend on 8th of March (instead of 3rd August), what should I say him? Like: 'Happy Reversed Anniversary'!?

Spagirl
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Ankur
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    Related: Date format in UK vs US. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 08 '17 at 10:33
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    Do you mean mm/did/yyyy in the second instance? That would be the US date format. If not, you might say they used the wrong date format. – Lawrence Mar 08 '17 at 10:35
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    Confused dates! – alwayslearning Mar 08 '17 at 10:36
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    @Lawrence, no, I wrote it intentionally. – Ankur Mar 08 '17 at 10:46
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    Even if such a word existed, it must be vanishingly rare, it would defeat your purpose. If someone's birthday is on March 8th send them a card on that date, and there's nothing to stop you from sending the same person a second card on August 3rd and coining your own word. – Mari-Lou A Mar 08 '17 at 11:00
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    Could you say 'Happy American Anniversary" - as many people know that Americans use the reverse form so he may get it. I think it's a great excuse for a celebration. – davidlol Mar 08 '17 at 11:02
  • @Mari-LouA, well Cards and anniversary are just for explanation. I'm looking for the particular word, which shows the relationship of 8th March with 3rd August and 1st December with 12th January :) – Ankur Mar 08 '17 at 11:04
  • @Ankur If it was intentional, they either got the date or the format wrong. No single-word term for swapping the day and month of a date comes to mind. – Lawrence Mar 08 '17 at 11:07
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    I'm not aware of any generally-accepted term in the US, other than "wrong" or "confused". I generally use the format "8 Mar 2017" to avoid any possible confusion. – Hot Licks Mar 08 '17 at 12:24
  • Sure you mean if you want to wish them this on March (the) Third, not the Third of March. :) Month-first is a speech thing, and the numeric digits merely a reflection of the same. – tchrist Mar 08 '17 at 14:36
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    @tchrist There goes the Fourth of July. :) – Lawrence Mar 08 '17 at 14:40
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    @Lawrence It is our joy and our delight to extend to both you and your lady wife the honor of an invitation to attend the graduation ceremony of our belovèd son Vernon Ebenezer Milton-FitzReine on Sunday the Twenty-First Day of May in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Seven at Three Hours of the Afternoon, with formal luncheon to follow in the pavilion. – tchrist Mar 08 '17 at 15:08
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    @tchrist Thank you kindly. I hope the graduation went well, but I'll have to offer my apologies as unfortunately the invitation was held up in the post. My compliments on the excellent formatting of your dates. – Lawrence Mar 08 '17 at 15:18
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    @davidlol I have a November 9th birthday. If I received this card on September 11th I'd do a bit of a double take – Cruncher Mar 08 '17 at 15:35
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    Perhaps it would be more common to consider this if more than about 12 birthdays in 30* (40%) still led to a meaningful date in the wrong system. * Of course there are 30.4 days in the average month (30.5 if you consider just leap years) – Chris H Mar 08 '17 at 15:52
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    As a fan of portmanteaus, I think you should wish them a Happy Anni-Reversary. – cloudfeet Mar 08 '17 at 16:04
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    I recommend switching the expression of the dates in the question from dd/mm/yyyy format to yyyy-mm-dd ISO date format, to make it clearer that US format has nothing to do with the question, and that the result of this process is not intrinsically in US or any other format. – user2357112 Mar 08 '17 at 17:40
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    Is there a word for this in some other language? Why would you imagine there is a word for this in English? – Canis Lupus Mar 08 '17 at 20:34
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    @cloudfeet I wish you had posted that as an answer... – ANeves Mar 09 '17 at 15:09

5 Answers5

39

While it's difficult to prove a negative, having grown up speaking English and being fairly well-read, I feel safe saying:

No, there is no commonly used word for this that would immediately be understood by the majority of people.

Kevin
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Middle-endian date format appears to be the technical term, more commonly known as the US date format, see also Ngram:

  • Despite the variety of date formats used around world, the US is the only country to use the mm/dd/yy format.

  • This condition is diagnosed as middle-endianness. Seriously. It comes from computer science where bytes are arranged according to their size. If the order has larger ones at the front, it's known as big-endian and so too are dates formatted with the years first (see the likes of China and Mongolia in the map).

enter image description here

(www.theguardian.com)

  • Don't the Chinese still use vertical script in certain areas? – Edwin Ashworth Mar 08 '17 at 10:39
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    This is quite useful @Josh, but date format is not my confusion :) – Ankur Mar 08 '17 at 10:53
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    @Ankur Well, you could say "Happy Middle-Endian Birthday". – Andrew Leach Mar 08 '17 at 10:55
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    @Ankur - the "reverse" format (mm/dd/yy) is called what I said in my answer. What definition you want to use for your friend is really up to you. –  Mar 08 '17 at 10:56
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    Fascinating map! – Dan Mar 08 '17 at 14:24
  • According to that map Canadians wouldn't know whether they're coming or going, and I wonder what the cutoff for including yyyy-mm-dd is (many blue countries must be close to being green) – Chris H Mar 08 '17 at 15:43
  • The map also appears to have Palau and FS Micronesia in red, despite the article's claim that only the US is. – Especially Lime Mar 08 '17 at 16:52
  • Oh Kenya. Of all the pairs to choose, you chose the worst two. – Mitch Mar 08 '17 at 17:25
  • Both dates in the question are expressed in dd/mm/yyyy format. US date format is not used at all. – user2357112 Mar 08 '17 at 17:28
  • @Josh: No format change is involved, only a change of the actual date. You could do the same thing regardless of whether the date was originally expressed in little-endian, big-endian, or US date format. Calling this process "US date format" would be especially confusing if you were already expressing dates in US format, in particular. – user2357112 Mar 08 '17 at 17:38
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    @Josh: The question is asking whether there's a word for the new date obtained by switching the day and month numbers of an old date (not the new representation of a date obtained by switching the positions of the day and month numbers in the old representation of a date). – user2357112 Mar 08 '17 at 17:42
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    This is a good answer to a different question, and would be upvoted if that were the question. – DCShannon Mar 08 '17 at 17:46
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    @ChrisH As a Canadian, I can say it's a serious annoyance. I'm a stalwart dd/mm/yyyy guy but it drives me nuts that this country can't make up its mind about date formats. Even worse, it's not entirely uncommon to also still see yy-mm-dd in some places - you end up having to find other related items or documents to cross reference by elimination which ones could be the days, months, or years. – J... Mar 09 '17 at 13:18
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A possibility would be to call it a "transposed" birthday.

Robert Cline
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    Not a bad idea, but as it stands this isn't a good answer. It would be much improved by a definition of "transposed" and a reference/link for where you got that definition from. – AndyT Mar 08 '17 at 17:15
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    Transposed date is the typical term I use and hear when dealing with data entry systems and the people that use them. It's a bit ambiguous though, because besides month/day transpositions, there are also day transpositions (1/21/2017 vs. 1/12/2017). Without more specific language though, if I just heard "transposed date" I would be assumed to be month/day. – hatchet - done with SOverflow Mar 08 '17 at 18:33
  • Accepted @Kevin's answer as 'transposed' can create ambiguity, but +1 for now, I'm wishing him 'Happy transposed Anniversary' :) – Ankur Mar 09 '17 at 10:32
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    @Ankur Although your question has nothing to do with date formats, seeing as month and day do get transposed on crossing the Big Pond between the UK and US, and seeing as there is no real word for what you want, how about calling it a "transponded" birthday? – bof Mar 09 '17 at 11:53
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As a tongue-in-cheek in joke, I'd call this a:

UK Birthday - if you're normally using mm/dd/yyyy and transposing it to dd/mm/yyyy.

U.S. Birthday - if you're normally using dd/mm/yyyy and transposing it to mm/dd/yyyy.

These aren't widely used or 'correct' by any reasonable way, but in a joking sense I think a friend or colleague would get what you're doing in context. "It's your U.S. Birthday today!"

Ehryk
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As has been mentioned in other answers, there's no universally understood word that I can think of (native US English speaker).

However, colloquially and in business, I've seen the dd/mm/yyyy format referred to as the "European Format"/"European Date Format".

So, you could perhaps congratulate and say "Happy European Anniversary!"

(Here's at least one use of "European Format" in practice.)

(Also, it's a little more special for those folks who got married/started dating/whatever in the first 12 days of the month. If you were married July 13, you don't get a "European Anniversary" in the US format since 13/07/20xx never comes up. )

BruceWayne
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    OP is the other way around - dd/mm/yyyy standard, and looking for an alternative name - the mm/dd/yyyy format is almost exclusive to the USA - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country – Rycochet Mar 09 '17 at 12:03
  • @Rycochet - D'oh, then yeah I'd go with "USA Birthday" or "USA Format". – BruceWayne Mar 09 '17 at 15:02