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I bought a bottle of juice today, and the "Best Before" date it's "11 MA 23". I always see "MA" as for March, but the store staff said that was May.

What is your opinion?

apaderno
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Ye Liu
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    That they should use MAR or MAY. And if that one character is so very important, then MR or MY if not the number 03 or 05. MA is much too ambiguous to be of use to the consumer. – snumpy Apr 18 '11 at 14:21
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    What's two months, give or take, if the year is 2023? (2123? 5823?) – RegDwigнt Apr 18 '11 at 14:37
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    @roe: but where's the fun in that? (My whole point is that the date is ambiguous in more than one way.) – RegDwigнt Apr 18 '11 at 15:08
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    @RegDwight; :) sorry, that one slipped past me.. Then again, maybe it's just part of an address somewhere in Boston? – falstro Apr 18 '11 at 15:16
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    @jasper most languages that use March/May use latin months so they are very similar. The irony here is that we often use the word for months to avoid the AE/BE ambiguity of which order the date and month go in! – mgb Apr 18 '11 at 16:15
  • ISO Date format would've been nice. :) – Mateen Ulhaq Apr 19 '11 at 03:18
  • @muntoo: It would be, but even here in Sweden were we have adopted the ISO standard for dates, the date markings on food doesn't follow that. It's common to see something like "100911", and there is no way of telling for certain what's what... – Guffa Apr 19 '11 at 12:15
  • @snumpy: Not when the good (commodity) involved is so highly perishable that it has a shelf-life of a month or less. – Jimi Oke Apr 19 '11 at 12:35
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    Just drink it. If you live, it meant May. – Jason Swett Apr 19 '11 at 13:41
  • That is so obvioously nonsene, it's prolly illegal. What else might matter, please? – Robbie Goodwin Apr 08 '18 at 20:26

5 Answers5

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Looks like the store staff was right, MA=May. This is from an answer to a similar question on a Canadian website:

Ah, I love this time of year.

I get asked this question twice a day at work (grocery store).

It Goes:

JA FE MR AP MA JN JL AU SE OC NO DE

One more year, and I'll have a song a la "Sound of Music"

Other sources seem to confirm that these two-letter month abbreviations were first used in Canada.

Edit: Here's further confirmation from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency:

The bilingual symbols for the months in the durable life date are as follows:

JA for JANUARY
FE for FEBRUARY
MR for MARCH
AL for APRIL
MA for MAY
JN for JUNE
JL for JULY
AU for AUGUST
SE for SEPTEMBER
OC for OCTOBER
NO for NOVEMBER
DE for DECEMBER

Community
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Callithumpian
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    I don't think so - in Canada they go: Wi Wi Wi Wi Wi RR (road repair) Wi Wi Wi Wi Wi – mgb Apr 18 '11 at 15:29
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    Seconding this answer — I moved to Canada this year and met the two-letter codes the first time, and inquired and found out what they mean. But whatever committee decided that MA was better than MY really should have had their acronym license revoked… – PLL Apr 18 '11 at 17:19
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    @jasper: Maybe because these abbreviations also work in French? MR: MaRch and MaRs, MA: MAy and MAi, but not MY. –  Apr 18 '11 at 17:30
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    @Jan Fabry +1 for your francophone observation. – rajah9 Apr 18 '11 at 17:49
  • @Jan: Good call. See the latest edit to my answer. – Callithumpian Apr 18 '11 at 19:00
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    Blame Canada? (nsfw) – Ankur Banerjee Apr 18 '11 at 20:36
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    @Ankur: No blame here. As a necessary bilingual code it's brilliant (Too bad it doesn't work for Spanish). Maybe it will have the same success as the two-letter state abbreviations imposed by the U.S. Postal Service. – Callithumpian Apr 18 '11 at 20:50
  • @Callithumpian The US state abbreviations were successful, but it took quite a while and there was a huge ruckus from people who didn't like the abbreviations used for their states. Fortunately people are likely less attached to month abbreviations. – Matthew Frederick Apr 18 '11 at 21:50
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    The bilingualism also explains the use of "AL" instead of "AP" for April. – Dan Apr 18 '11 at 23:05
  • @Matthew: And a Taurus from Alabama or Massachusetts would get a double whammy. – Callithumpian Apr 19 '11 at 00:38
  • "As a necessary bilingual code" I'd say "necessary" is a bit far. "05" works fine in almost every language. – Random832 Apr 19 '11 at 01:51
  • Can anyone explain why the Canadian government believes it's citizens cannot be expected to understand month numbers? – RedGrittyBrick Apr 19 '11 at 09:08
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    @RedGrittyBrick: To reduce ambiguity? Canada seems to use the YMD, DMY and MDY formats, probably depending on the language, so "11-05-09" can be interpreted in multiple ways. –  Apr 19 '11 at 11:26
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    @Jan: I see your point. It would be more persuasive if 12 MA 11 could not be interpreted in as many different ways. Can't Canada use an international standard like ISO 8601 or be imaginative (12V2011?) – RedGrittyBrick Apr 19 '11 at 16:10
  • @RedGrittyBrick: The Canadian government uses YYYY-MM-DD as a standard. Maybe they allowed the two-digit year too to prevent massive printer upgrade costs for the manufacturers around the year 2000? You can't control how every individual uses dates in their daily communication, so it's better to use a format that is known to most people. 12 MA 11 can only be interpreted as "May 11, 2012" or "May 12, 2011" (two ways instead of three), and in many cases it will be clear which value makes most sense as the year. –  Apr 20 '11 at 06:46
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MA refers to May.

As someone already said, the abbreviations are carefully chosen so that they work in both English and French. MA for mai or May. MR for mars or March.

Mari-Lou A
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Turtle
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What is your opinion?

It is ambiguous for English speakers. From other answers here I see it causes widespread confusion. Any standard that causes widespread confusion is probably not a good standard.

Off-topic digression:

In the part of the world I inhabit, "Best before" dates are about peak flavour/texture/aroma, they are not about safety.

  Best before     About flavour and texture
  Use by          Health and safety
  Sell by         Shop stock rotation
  Display until   Shop stock rotation

From a BBC article

RedGrittyBrick
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4

You bought a bottle of juice today (04/18/11) and the best-before (BB) date reads "11 MA 23". Well, no reputable store would display a bottle of juice—a highly perishable food—that is over a month past its BB date. Thus, the MA in the BB date must stand for May.

Jimi Oke
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    Perhaps they are shifty and keep the expired MA products around to reshelve in a month... "MA means, uh, what month is it again? April? Then it means May." – MrHen Apr 18 '11 at 18:09
  • It could have been 11 March, 2023. In fact, it could still mean 11 May, 2023. – Erik P. May 28 '13 at 13:18
  • I don't think a bottle of juice could last that long! – Jimi Oke Jun 01 '13 at 01:16
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Watch out! Sometimes MA on expiry dates on Canadian products is actually neither March nor May, but in fact an abbreviation for "meilleur avant": French for "best before".

Kaz
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