zompist bboard

Xephyr wrote:So 7:41 and 7:49 are both "Relaax, I got like a quarter of an hour still.", but 7:51 is "HolyshitIgottagetgoing".

Yes, I get that too sometimes.

dinnae wrote: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)

German:

13:20 zwanzig nach eins (twenty after one)
13:25 fünf vor halb zwei (five before half two)
13:30 halb zwei (half two)
13:35 fünf nach halb zwei (five after half zwei)
13:40 zwanzig vor zwei (twenty before two)

"zehn nach halb" and "zehn vor halb" aren't unheard of either.

During my time of alternative army service I lived together with a couple of Saxons, and the Western-Germans of us sometimes made fun of their habit of saying "viertel" and "drei viertel" for :15 and :45 (see cedh's post above) by applying the same to :20 and :40 – "drittel" and "zwei drittel". After a time I got used to the "other" system though, so now I can handle both.

In Australia, well mainly north-east Sydney, we'd normally say e.g., "quarter to one" without the o'clock, or without the ante meridium and the post meridium.
I've always used 12hr but I can read 24hr.

Oh and I find analog clocks a lot more easier to read than digital clocks. Not for their faces. But you can look at an alaog clock and know the time straight away, while you have to focus on a digital clock.

Skomakar'n wrote:Most countries of the world use what Americans would call "the military clock".

Citation needed?

In El Salvador we use the 12-hour system (plus a.m./p.m.). The 24-hour system has very, very marginal presence.

Jacqui wrote:But you can look at an alaog clock and know the time straight away, while you have to focus on a digital clock.

It's the other way around for me.

Neqitan wrote:

Skomakar'n wrote:Most countries of the world use what Americans would call "the military clock".

Citation needed?

In El Salvador we use the 12-hour system (plus a.m./p.m.). The 24-hour system has very, very marginal presence.

Most european countries, certainly. Here the UK is very much the exception, although as we've witnessed, the other Germanic countries use an absolutely mad spoken system.

Its weird that no one else has quarter of, 20 of, or half of. Must be a local thing. Til and to are also used but less often.

If it is local I wonder about the origins. It could be an innovation or come from one of many influences. Primary possibilities include Dutch, Polish, French, and Spanish.

Prmysl wrote:Its weird that no one else has quarter of, 20 of, or half of. Must be a local thing. Til and to are also used but less often.

If it is local I wonder about the origins. It could be an innovation or come from one of many influences. Primary possibilities include Dutch, Polish, French, and Spanish.

As I say, it's always "past" and "to" in the UK. I'm not even aware of any regional differences here.

finlay wrote:

Neqitan wrote:

Skomakar'n wrote:Most countries of the world use what Americans would call "the military clock".

Citation needed?

In El Salvador we use the 12-hour system (plus a.m./p.m.). The 24-hour system has very, very marginal presence.

Most european countries, certainly.

For official purposes, that is. I'm not convinced even most Europeans use it in normal speech.

Incidentally, "five to half one" for 12:25 occurs here as well, although "twenty-five past twelve" is probably more common. In fact, I think I occasionally even say stuff like "quarter to half one" for 12:15. It seems to me, however, that this is usually connected with something being supposed to happen at 12:30.

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?

'Vijfentwintig over één' is a few syllables (3) longer than 'vijf voor half twee'.

Plus it's too big a number for our brains to handle

In Norway we say "five to half one", and also "ten to half one". "Twenty to/past" is rarely heard, and "twenty-five to/past" would be high treason. The effect of this is that numbers larger than 10 are rarely used for the minutes, except for "quarter" (and that's not even a number). Of course, reading out the 24 hour clock time is always an option.

dinnae wrote:

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?

'Vijfentwintig over één' is a few syllables (3) longer than 'vijf voor half twee'.

Plus it's too big a number for our brains to handle

Well, the other thing is that we routinely miss out the hour because it's usually assumed that the one asking the time is aware of roughly what hour it is and merely requires a more accurate answer. Half the time it's followed by "twenty-five past what‽" though.

I still can't believe you all say "half 10" to mean 9:30; it's clearly 10:30....

finlay wrote:

dinnae wrote:

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?

'Vijfentwintig over één' is a few syllables (3) longer than 'vijf voor half twee'.

Plus it's too big a number for our brains to handle

Well, the other thing is that we routinely miss out the hour because it's usually assumed that the one asking the time is aware of roughly what hour it is and merely requires a more accurate answer. Half the time it's followed by "twenty-five past what‽" though.

I still can't believe you all say "half 10" to mean 9:30; it's clearly 10:30....

Uh. No. Half ten. Half of ten. Half an hour left to ten. There is no logic in interpreting it the other way around.

Skomakar'n wrote:

finlay wrote:

dinnae wrote:

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?

'Vijfentwintig over één' is a few syllables (3) longer than 'vijf voor half twee'.

Plus it's too big a number for our brains to handle

Well, the other thing is that we routinely miss out the hour because it's usually assumed that the one asking the time is aware of roughly what hour it is and merely requires a more accurate answer. Half the time it's followed by "twenty-five past what‽" though.

I still can't believe you all say "half 10" to mean 9:30; it's clearly 10:30....

Uh. No. Half ten. Half of ten. Half an hour left to ten. There is no logic in interpreting it the other way around.

Like a half plus ten.

Skomakar'n wrote:Uh. No. Half ten. Half of ten. Half an hour left to ten. There is no logic in interpreting it the other way around.

Maybe it's a dvandva? Although even in that case you'd expect it to be "ten half".

Also, if you're going to be so literal about it, surely "half ten" can only mean five.

Åge Kruger wrote:

Skomakar'n wrote:

finlay wrote:

dinnae wrote:

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?

'Vijfentwintig over één' is a few syllables (3) longer than 'vijf voor half twee'.

Plus it's too big a number for our brains to handle

Well, the other thing is that we routinely miss out the hour because it's usually assumed that the one asking the time is aware of roughly what hour it is and merely requires a more accurate answer. Half the time it's followed by "twenty-five past what‽" though.

I still can't believe you all say "half 10" to mean 9:30; it's clearly 10:30....

Uh. No. Half ten. Half of ten. Half an hour left to ten. There is no logic in interpreting it the other way around.

Like a half plus ten.

If there are no other words than "half" and "ten", and "half" is first, why would one assume a plus rather than just treating it as an adjective modifying the "ten"?

Skomakar'n wrote:If there are no other words than "half" and "ten", and "half" is first, why would one assume a plus rather than just treating it as an adjective modifying the "ten"?

[sperg]You could argue that "half 10" is actually 5[/sperg]

Maybe this actually works in the same as "anderthalb" = "second half" = 2-½ = 1½? AFAIK this used to expand to other numbers as well. Dutch had it too IIRC.

Telling time in Georgian is a little counter-intuitive: you only ever say what hour it really is at the top of the hour. From one to thirty minutes past the hour, you use the right number of minutes but refer to the next hour, which in the genitive. For the second half of the hour, you say the next hour is lacking a certain number of minutes.

ექვსი საათია / Ekvsi saatia.
It's 6:00 (Literally "six-NOM hour-NOM-COP")
შვიდის ერთი წუთია / Shvidi erti c'utia
It's 6:01 ("seven-GEN one-NOM minute-NOM-COP")
შვიდის ნახევარია / Shvidi naxevaria
It's 6:30 ("seven-GEN half-NOM-COP")
სვიდს აკლია ცხრამეტი წუთი / Shvidi ak'lia cxramet'i c'uti
It's 6:41 ("seven-DAT lack nineteen-NOM minute-NOM")

As for English, sometimes I say "seven and a quarter/third/half" or "seven and two thirds/three quarters". Usually, though, I just say the hour followed by the number of minutes. I never use 24-hour time.

I've noticed expressions like "quarter of", "ten til", etc are almost nonexistent in my generation (or maybe just in my area). Instead of saying "Class ends at seven til", something like "Class is over at fifty-three" is pretty common.

Skomakar'n wrote:

Åge Kruger wrote:

Skomakar'n wrote:

finlay wrote:

dinnae wrote: 'Vijfentwintig over één' is a few syllables (3) longer than 'vijf voor half twee'.

Plus it's too big a number for our brains to handle

Well, the other thing is that we routinely miss out the hour because it's usually assumed that the one asking the time is aware of roughly what hour it is and merely requires a more accurate answer. Half the time it's followed by "twenty-five past what‽" though.

I still can't believe you all say "half 10" to mean 9:30; it's clearly 10:30....

Uh. No. Half ten. Half of ten. Half an hour left to ten. There is no logic in interpreting it the other way around.

Like a half plus ten.

If there are no other words than "half" and "ten", and "half" is first, why would one assume a plus rather than just treating it as an adjective modifying the "ten"?

There's no logic your way round either, to be fair. But in English it's explicitly short for "half past ten". We don't say "half to".

For whatever reason, I never found it confusing to use both half ten and 'half tien' for times that are an hour apart.

A friend of mine did once have a problem with this, though, when we were supposed to meet up with someone and was planning to go an hour early due to miscommunication

na'oolkili wrote:Telling time in Georgian is a little counter-intuitive: you only ever say what hour it really is at the top of the hour. From one to thirty minutes past the hour, you use the right number of minutes but refer to the next hour, which in the genitive. For the second half of the hour, you say the next hour is lacking a certain number of minutes.

ექვსი საათია / Ekvsi saatia.
It's 6:00 (Literally "six-NOM hour-NOM-COP")
შვიდის ერთი წუთია / Shvidi erti c'utia
It's 6:01 ("seven-GEN one-NOM minute-NOM-COP")
შვიდის ნახევარია / Shvidi naxevaria
It's 6:30 ("seven-GEN half-NOM-COP")
სვიდს აკლია ცხრამეტი წუთი / Shvidi ak'lia cxramet'i c'uti
It's 6:41 ("seven-DAT lack nineteen-NOM minute-NOM")

This is about the same as the Russian system:

Шесть (часов).
It's 6:00 (Literally "six-NOM (hour-GEN.PL)")
Одна минута седьмого.
It's 6:01 ("one-NOM minute-NOM seventh-GEN")
Пол седьмого.
It's 6:30 ("Half-NOM seventh-GEN")
Без девятнадцати семь.
It's 6:41 ("Without nineteen-GEN seven-NOM")

четверть "quarter" is used in the same way:
6:15 четверть седьмого
6:45 без четверти семь

Although, in Russian, this system is more frequently used for multiples of 5 minutes, for other numbers of minutes you'll often hear:
6:23 шесть двадцать-три"six twenty three" (optionally восемьнадцать двадцать-три "eighteen twenty-three" if it's PM).

I've been raised with 12 hour system, as I assume most people have, unless they're very young. But here (in Sweden) we rarely use AM/PM or any equivalent; in writing it's usually 24 hour system, and in speech it's often "four in the afternoon" if it's not obvious.

"Noon" is hardly ever used, because by some peculiar twist of semantic drift the word for noon, or rather "mid-day", namely "middag", has also come to mean "dinner", which is certainly not eaten at noon. So "see you at noon" would be interpreted as "see you at dinner".

In English too, I tend to say "see you at seventeen", but it's pretty much a conscious effort. Really, the 24 hour system is much more logical, so I try to use that.

AM/PM makes me confused sometimes. My mum taught me when I was little to think of "approaching midday" and "past midday", but that doesn't help much, since it might as well be "midnight", or "after". So now I usually think of the actual Latin expressions to remember which is which.

And "half five" is also confusing, since it means different things in English and in my natlang. Some of my not-so-good-at-English friends say "five and a half". Makes sense, but maybe a little long.

Chuma wrote:I've been raised with 12 hour system, as I assume most people have, unless they're very young. But here (in Sweden) we rarely use AM/PM or any equivalent; in writing it's usually 24 hour system, and in speech it's often "four in the afternoon" if it's not obvious.

"Noon" is hardly ever used, because by some peculiar twist of semantic drift the word for noon, or rather "mid-day", namely "middag", has also come to mean "dinner", which is certainly not eaten at noon. So "see you at noon" would be interpreted as "see you at dinner".

In English too, I tend to say "see you at seventeen", but it's pretty much a conscious effort. Really, the 24 hour system is much more logical, so I try to use that.

Don't say that, it sounds odd. Seventeen-hundred, perhaps, but we only tend to read out times in the 24 hour method when we're being exact. So seventeen-oh-one is ok... "seventeen" is not. Say five o'clock. Please. If you don't you are marking yourself out as a non-native speaker.

And "half five" is also confusing, since it means different things in English and in my natlang. Some of my not-so-good-at-English friends say "five and a half". Makes sense, but maybe a little long.

Again, try to discourage this; "half five" is short for "half past five". Explicitly. In fact, unless you're among a purely-British crowd I'd avoid using "half five" in favour of "half past five".

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 never heard "Quarter of" in speech, only "Quarter to" and "Quarter after". When I read it in books (Stephen King uses it A LOT) I get confused to which it is sometimes.

In Italian I usually use the 12h system when speaking, but the 24h in writing. when using the 12h I don't add AM or PM or other distinction, it is usually clear from the context which is intended.
Also, when the hours are already known (as in during a lesson) we usually say just the minutes, so for example 10:20 are just (e) venti ((and) twenty).

12:00 is always mezzogiorno (mid day)
24.00 is always mezzanotte (mid night)

complete round with *literal* translation
5:00 : le cinque ("the five", hours are feminine)
5:05 : le cinque e cinque ("the five and five")
5:15 : le cinque e un quarto ("the five and one quarter/fourth")
5:30 : le cinque e mezza ("the five and half" (half also feminine))
5:35 : le cinque e trentacinque (the five and thirty-five, NEVER 25 to six)
5:40 : le sei meno venti ("the six minus twenty")
5:45 : le cinque e tre quarti/le sei meno un quarto ("the five and three quarters"/"the six minus one quarter")
5:50 : le sei meno dieci (the six minus ten)
5.55 : le sei meno cinque (the six minus five)

and this should've covered it all :s

Jojo wrote:mezzogiorno (mid day)