[mso] Build AND sort a date in Excel: Possible?

Linda- you are boss. Make all the duplicates you want! :)


I have a question I tried to resolve today.
Suppose in Column A, each cell is contains a drop-down list of numbers 1500 
through 2003. (Yes, they are years.)
In Column B each cell contains a drop down list of the months, abbreviated 
to JAN, FEB, MAR, etc.
Column C contains numbers 1 through 31 in a drop down list.

For example, in A2, I choose 1855.
In B2, I choose SEP
In C2, I choose 17

I can concatenate that so that in D2 it reads 1855-SEP-17 in text.

Now the question: When I go to sort Column D, it is not sorting correctly. 
The month name (abbreviation) is used, so that 1855-APR-20 is actually put 
before 1855-JAN15.

Does anyone know of a way to keep the abbreviation, but still sort the 
months correctly? The +majority+ of the dates will be before 'valid' dates 
in Excel.

When sorted, I want it to look like:
1855-JAN-15
1855-MAR-01
1855-APR-12
1855-DEC-15

and not:
1855-APR-12
1855-DEC-15
1855-


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