I had no idea that here in the United States our way of writing the date did not mesh with other parts of the world.
Then, because my work office at the World Trade Center in Seattle was also in the same suite of offices with the Belgian Consulate, I ran into a couple who had flown up from San Francisco to get travel papers to go back to Belgium because their passports had expired. They had looked at the “American date” that has the month, day and then year and confused it with the European method of day, month and then year.
Yes that is right. Friday July 2, 2021, would be written as 2/07/2021. We, on the other hand, are writing our dates as 7/2/2021.
If we were logical people, I do think the 2/07/2021 makes much more sense. Day, month, year. But, no — we are “exceptional” in the way we write dates too.
Eric Holdeman is a nationally known emergency manager. He has worked in emergency management at the federal, state and local government levels. Today he serves as the Director, Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (CRDR), which is part of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER). The focus for his work there is engaging the public and private sectors to work collaboratively on issues of common interest, regionally and cross jurisdictionally.
