5 ms·
> As someone who grew up in a country where 24 hours are the norm for digital displays, I'm a bit miffed that the author seems to portray that as alien and weir
by Mithaldu 12y ago
> As someone who grew up in a country where 24 hours are the norm for digital displays, I'm a bit miffed that the author seems to portray that as alien and weird.
As a german, i gotta agree. We have (translated) "four in the afternoon" or "16 'o clock". (4 Uhr Nachmittags, 16 Uhr.) We also never say the leading zero on hours, and depending on context it doesn't even need to be clarified that we're talking about "'o clock", these are perfectly fine exchanges: "When will you go to the beach?" "Three twenty." (Wann geht ihr zum Strand? - Drei zwanzig.) The context makes it abundantly clear which is meant.
There's also the fact that nobody uses the construct "xx hundred" for numbers above 9. The years before 2000 are still referred to like that, but outside of that people will consider you very strange if you try and buy "twelve hundred grams of minced meat". And for times it's especially not used.
The author's awkwardness with 24 hour times entirely on himself.
Edit: To make this post a little useful, this website is extremely useful for dealing with people in different timezones:
http://everytimezone.com/ http://everytimezone.com/
- jallmann 12y ago> nobody uses the construct "xx hundred" for numbers above 9. I use it all the time. What's easier to say, "one thousand two hundred" or "twelve hundred"?
- Retra 12y ago"Twelve hundred" is no weirder than "Ten thousand."
- Sami_Lehtinen 12y agoNor stranger than 1 dekaliter. Some units are just used more often than others.
- ajuc 12y agoHow about twelve tens for 120? That how it sounds to me ;)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Retra 12y agoYou mean a decadozen?
- allendoerfer 12y agoAs a German watching some English podcasts I am now used to it, but at first I pictured the trailing zeros in my head to understand it fast enough in spoken language.
- rmc 12y agoI think it's an American English dialect thing. I'm from Ireland, a dialect close to British English, and always found it odd when they say it on US TV
- anon4 12y agoDepends on the language. In some, "one thousand two hundred" is about as simple as "thousand and twondred", while "twelve hundred" is "twoovertenhundred" and quite a mouthful.
- ajuc 12y agoThis is cultural. In Polish there's separate word for n-hundred. 200 is dwieście, 300 is trzysta, etc. So nobody thinks about number of hundreds and tousands as connected thing, we just divide the number differently because of language. Imagine someone told you "twelve tens" for 120 :) Anyway, "tysiąc dwieście" for 1200 is easier than "twelve hundred" or "dwanaście setek".
- vacri 12y agowe're talking about "'o clock" As an aside, in high school I had an English teacher with such clear and correct diction, that people said you could hear the apostrophe in "o'clock"...
- nemetroid 12y agoFWIW, in Swedish it's perfectly normal to say the leading zero on hours, to use the "xx hundred" construct when buying twelve hundred grams of minced meat, as well as to refer to years after 2000 as "twenty hundred and fifteen" (tjugohundrafemton). I think the reason the post uses the "twelve hundred hours" is because the American military does. That said, I agree that there's nothing awkward about 24 hour times.
- patrickaljord 12y ago> Edit: To make this post a little useful, this website is extremely useful for dealing with people in different timezones: > http://everytimezone.com/ http://everytimezone.com/ You can now just type "12 pm in Lima" in Google and it will give your the equivalent in you local timezone.
- avinassh 12y ago> http://everytimezone.com/ http://everytimezone.com/ It's a great and well designed site. Works offline too!
- dllthomas 12y ago'There's also the fact that nobody uses the construct "xx hundred" for numbers above 9.' Count me amongst those who do. By subjective reflection - and standing significant chance of being wrong - I would say most frequently when I've had to do a bit of arithmetic on values where rounding to hundreds is most reasonable.