Occasionally if I see the time on the two different kinds of clock I might read it off as, eg, quarter to 8 and 19:45 or 07:45 – then I get confused because the second one seems to be an hour earlier. Anyone else get confused by this?

finlay wrote:Less prevalent? Do you reckon? IME wall clocks and clocks on towers are always analogue... or almost always, anyway.
Nortaneous wrote:I use both systems (I prefer 24-hour, so I keep my computers set to it; also, IRC clients almost always use 24-hour), and I remember times in whichever system I hear about them in. In speech, I only use 12-hour, but I'm in America and everyone here uses 12-hour.
Zoris wrote:I realize the original meaning of "am" was "after midnight" or some latin equivalent
Maybe this is an artifact of a time before knowledge of the number zero?
Elyndian wrote:Nortaneous wrote:I know both, but I never use 12hour. I set everything to 24, and even in speech I'll use 24hour.
If someone were to ask me what time I normally eat dinner, I would tell them, anywhere between eighteen hundred, and twenty-one hundred.
Sometimes I get confused looks, but mostly people know what I mean.
Elyndian wrote:Nortaneous wrote:I use both systems (I prefer 24-hour, so I keep my computers set to it; also, IRC clients almost always use 24-hour), and I remember times in whichever system I hear about them in. In speech, I only use 12-hour, but I'm in America and everyone here uses 12-hour.
Everyone?
You sure?
Heh, a friend of mine always says "noon thirty". I make fun of her for it all the time.Chibi wrote:Interestingly, for a time like 12:30am, I tend to say "midnight thirty," which I don't think is standard in English. Uh...not that I have the need to say stuff like that often?
Ulrike Meinhof wrote:The merger is between /8/ and /9/, merging into /8/. Seeing as they're just one number apart, that's not too strange.
Xephyr wrote:Regarding dial vs digital clocks, my personal experiences with them has supported the marketing guys who insist on pricing something at $49.99 instead of $50.00. By which I mean... when I look at a dial clock, I have a pretty good idea of how much time I have until, say, I gotta leave at the top of the hour. Whereas when I use a digital clock, I tend to only pay attention to the first digit after the colon. So 7:41 and 7:49 are both "Relaax, I got like a quarter of an hour still.", but 7:51 is "HolyshitIgottagetgoing".
Koffiegast wrote:I use both, but without the AM/PM stuff. Theyre replaced with afternoon ('s middags), evening ('s avonds), etcetera. There is one thing that I really hate about the AM/PM system, and that's when it's midnight, 12.00AM, 12.00PM, 0.00AM etc, I've seen all sorts of makeshift solutions.
dinnae wrote:Yeah, Dutch is pretty interesting when it comes to saying the time.
As an example, between 1 and 2 o'clock it goes like this (with literal translations in brackets):
13:00 één uur; (one hour)
13:05 vijf over één (five over one)
13:10 tien over één (ten over one)
13:15 kwart over één (quarter over one)
13:20 twintig over één (twenty over one)
13:25 vijf voor half twee (five before half two)
13:30 half twee (half two)
13:35 vijf over half twee (five over half two)
13:40 twintig voor twee (twenty before two)
13:45 kwart voor twee (quarter before two)
13:50 tien voor twee (ten before two)
13:55 vijf voor twee (five before two)
14:00 twee uur
Of course, being Dutch, we like to make fun of ourselves and occasionally use things like 'vijf over kwart voor half zeven' (five past a quarter till half past six, so twenty past six...). Some people sometimes mistakenly produce monsters like that without realising.
finlay wrote:eodrakken wrote:Viktor77 wrote:One strange thing that a lot Americans say which I never say are markers such as quarter to, ten after, etc. I've began to become a fair bit more acquainted with terms like quarter to, quarter after, but I still find myself saying five fifty-five or four forty-five since it's easier to comprehend more quickly for me.
Me too. Also, for a while I didn't know what "quarter of" meant -- wasn't sure if "quarter of nine" was 8:45 or 9:15. I don't know if it's regional, but it does seem like I hear that style of time-telling more often on the east coast.
I've found that American English is very inconsistent with its choice of words for this – quarter of and all that. In British English I've literally never heard anything but "quarter past" and "quarter to". Also, we tend to drop "past" in "half past", leading to "half 2" being 2:30 (or, indeed, 14:30), which of course is opposite to the way that German and Dutch (presumably others too) do it – "half 2" is "half to 2", or 13:30, there.
cedh audmanh wrote:finlay wrote:eodrakken wrote:Viktor77 wrote:One strange thing that a lot Americans say which I never say are markers such as quarter to, ten after, etc. I've began to become a fair bit more acquainted with terms like quarter to, quarter after, but I still find myself saying five fifty-five or four forty-five since it's easier to comprehend more quickly for me.
Me too. Also, for a while I didn't know what "quarter of" meant -- wasn't sure if "quarter of nine" was 8:45 or 9:15. I don't know if it's regional, but it does seem like I hear that style of time-telling more often on the east coast.
I've found that American English is very inconsistent with its choice of words for this – quarter of and all that. In British English I've literally never heard anything but "quarter past" and "quarter to". Also, we tend to drop "past" in "half past", leading to "half 2" being 2:30 (or, indeed, 14:30), which of course is opposite to the way that German and Dutch (presumably others too) do it – "half 2" is "half to 2", or 13:30, there.
There's an interesting regional division in Germany with regards to "quarter". In standard colloquial German you say viertel vor ("quarter to") and viertel nach ("quarter past"). Both of these refer to the nearest full hour, so viertel vor zwei is 13:45 and viertel nach zwei is 14:15. However, in large parts of eastern Germany it is common to use viertel (without the preposition) to mean a quarter of the hour that has just started, and dreiviertel ("three quarters") to mean fifteen minutes before the full hour. In this system viertel zwei (lit. "a quarter of two") is actually 13:15!
Shm Jay wrote:What's the taboo in Dutch about saying twenty-five? And if someone did say "twenty-five before/after", how would it sound?
Skomakar'n wrote:dinnae wrote:Yeah, Dutch is pretty interesting when it comes to saying the time.
As an example, between 1 and 2 o'clock it goes like this (with literal translations in brackets):
13:00 één uur; (one hour)
13:05 vijf over één (five over one)
13:10 tien over één (ten over one)
13:15 kwart over één (quarter over one)
13:20 twintig over één (twenty over one)
13:25 vijf voor half twee (five before half two)
13:30 half twee (half two)
13:35 vijf over half twee (five over half two)
13:40 twintig voor twee (twenty before two)
13:45 kwart voor twee (quarter before two)
13:50 tien voor twee (ten before two)
13:55 vijf voor twee (five before two)
14:00 twee uur
Of course, being Dutch, we like to make fun of ourselves and occasionally use things like 'vijf over kwart voor half zeven' (five past a quarter till half past six, so twenty past six...). Some people sometimes mistakenly produce monsters like that without realising.
... I'm so going to say fem över kvart i halv sju from now on (the same thing, except that it's literally quarter in, rather than quarter before). I didn't know we told time in the same way in Sweden as in The Netherlands! Awesome!