Dates: how to write dates in business writing

No universal style for writing dates

The style you use varies depending on where you live

In Australian, New Zealand and British business writing, the order of dates is day of the week (optional), day, month, year (dd/mm/yyyy).

There is no need for any punctuation, but some writers put a comma after the day of the week.

Wednesday 2 January 2019 (or Wednesday, 2 January 2019)
2 January 2019

Americans and the media reverse the order of the month and day, so need commas to separate the day and the year (mm/dd/yyyy).

Wednesday January 2, 2019 (or Wednesday, January 2, 2019)
January 2, 2019

Ordinals (-st and –th; 1^st, 13^th) are not necessary in dates apart from in date periods.

19th century

Dates as numerals

When writing dates as numerals, the conventional sequence in England, Australia and New Zealand is day, month, year, separated by full stops or forward slashes.

10.05.2018 or 10/05/2018 (10 May 2018)

You can abbreviate the century if it is obvious (10.05.18).

In American writing and the media, the month comes before the day.

05.10.2018 or 05/10/2018 (May 10, 2018)

Some countries, for example South Korea, put the year first (year, month, day).

2018/12/21

Abbreviations

The style for abbreviations for days and months does not appear to be consistent. Check the style for your country.

In Australia, the standard abbreviation of days of the week is as follows (with or without full stops):

Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat

In Australia, months that have four or fewer letters are usually not abbreviated. Abbreviations for the other months (with or without full stops) are:

Jan Feb Mar Apr Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec

Decades

When you are referring to a year span within a decade, you don’t need to repeat the century figures.

1993–98

Many writers use an en rule ( – ) rather than a hyphen ( – ) between decades and centuries to make the numbers stand out more clearly.

When referring to decades in the plural, you don’t need an apostrophe.

Fashions were amazing in the 1970s.

Apostrophes have even dropped out of possessive usages, such as 1920s flappers (flappers of the 1920s).

Learn more

Learn more about styles and usage with my online course: Grammar, Punctuation and Usage.

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