Apart from knowing when to use would and will, dates and how to write them confuse me. One major complexity with this, is the struggle of where or whether to use commas, while another is with the difference in date formats all over the world. So I asked the all-knowing internet how to write dates and because I’m nice, I thought to share my findings.
Hopefully, at the end of this article, you will have learnt when Oghogho was born how to write dates correctly. Enjoy!
How to Write Dates with Days of the Week
To ensure that your work is readable, the ideal way to write a date with a day, is to use a comma right after the day.
Example: Nigeria gained independence on Friday, October 1, 1960.
Tuesday, August 5, is my first day at my new job.
How to Write Dates in the Month-day Format
When referring to a particular date in the month-day format, use cardinal numbers like one, two and three, instead of ordinal numbers such as first, second and third.
Example: Oghogho was born on November 21
Also, when using the British day-month-year format, no commas are necessary but for the American format, it is month-day-year and commas should be placed after the day and year.
Example: On 21 November 1998 Oghogho was born (British format)
On November 21, 1998, Oghogho was born (American Format)
Note however, that you can use an ordinal number if you use ‘of’ in constructing your sentence and when writing a specific day without referring to the month. Therefore, Oghogho was born on the twenty first and Oghogho was born on the 21st of November are correct.
How to Write the Year
Years should be written as words when they come at the beginning of a sentence, but when they come in other parts, they should be written as numerals.
Example: A lot happened in Nigeria’s political scene in 1998
Nineteen ninety eight was an eventful year in politics
The year 1999 was very eventful
How to Write Decades and Centuries
There are three ways to write decades. The first method is by spelling out the words, i.e. the nineties while the second is by writing out the numerals followed by an s (i.e. the 1990s). The third method is by writing the decade as a two-digit number followed by an s and preceded by an apostrophe (i.e. ‘90s).
Example: In the ‘90s, shaking tables was not a thing
In the nineties, shaking tables was not a thing
In the 1990s, shaking tables was not a thing
On the other hand, when referring to a century such as the 20th, you can either write it as numerals followed by an s (i.e. the 1900s), as ‘the twentieth century’ (because name of a century is derived by adding one to the first two numbers of the years in the it) or as ‘the nineteen hundreds’ (literal derivative).
Example: Oghogho was born in the 1900s
Oghogho was born in the twentieth century
Oghogho was born in the nineteen hundreds (this makes me feel old. Lol)
Now that you know better, I hope you begin to write dates the right way.
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