How to write the date in English

Do you know how to write the date in English? It’s easy right?

Well, it’s not quite as easy as you think because I see mistakes in the date all the time (especially in out of office auto replies.) It's an easy mistake to make and it doesn't make a good impression to the person reading it.

Don't worry, it's easy to write the date correctly: you just need to follow this quick guide to writing the date in English:

In British English we put the date before the month:

6 October 2020

6th October 2020

In American English, it’s normally month before date, and if you want to be correct, you add a comma:

October 6, 2020

October 6th, 2020

You can choose whichever one you like. Both are correct.

I very often see people writing dates like “October 1th”. Is this correct? No!

After 1, we write -st for first.

After 2, we write -nd for second.

After 3, we write -rd for third.

After 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 we write -th.

So:

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

9th

10th

11th

12th

13th

14th

15th

16th

17th

18th

19th

20th

21st

22nd

23rd

24th

25th

26th

27th

28th

29th

30th

31st

Now go and check my blog post on how to write an out of office reply, so next time you’re writing the date to tell people when you’ll be back to work, you’ll know it’s the right date.