wu :: forums - Print Page


    
      
        wu :: forums
        (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi)
      

        riddles >> general problem-solving / chatting / whatever >> grace jones for prime minister...
        
(Message started by: Noke Lieu on Apr 14^th, 2009, 4:06pm)

Title: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by Noke Lieu on Apr 14^th, 2009, 4:06pm

It turns out that "telling the time" is part of the Maths curriculum over here. I suppose that makes sense.

The most curious thing that I've stumbled across is with using 12h clock, and whether midnight should be "AM/PM" or indeed if midday should be either, or just "M".

Accepting the postulate that days start and finish at midnight- does it follow that midnight can be regarded as both AM and PM; and neither?

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by Grimbal on Apr 15^th, 2009, 6:20am

The whole day is between 2 M's. PM of one day should also count as AM of the next day. To avoid confusion, one should split the day in R and S (raising/setting). From there, 12:00 shoud be U or D (up or down). Or time should go from 0:00 R to 11:59 R and then 0:00 S to 11:59 S.

Don't pay attention too much. I am mostly joking.

Of course the right thing to do is to use 24 hours format. ::) If you want, you can distinguish 0:00 and 24:00, one being the start of a day the other the end.

Anyway, according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-hour_clock#Confusion_at_noon_and_midnight
the "m" for midday and "m.n." for midnight is used in some places.

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by Noke Lieu on Apr 15^th, 2009, 5:01pm

:D

That's nice.
One of the things that I find curious is that many people drop their mental shutters on this and don't like thinking about it. Not round here though, which is such a refreshing change.

Personally, I think that the 12hr clock is much better, if only for the fact that "23:58" sounds pathetic, but "2 minutes to midnight" sounds awesome.

Digital watches sort of... depleted the way time is said in English. But equally, they have enriched it. There's something almost poetic about saying time the 'correct' way, and something very business about saying "3:45"...
Used in the correct setting, it adds to the complex and rich tapestry that is 'English'.

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by towr on Apr 16^th, 2009, 12:49am

on 04/15/09 at 17:01:13, Noke Lieu wrote:

Personally, I think that the 12hr clock is much better, if only for the fact that "23:58" sounds pathetic, but "2 minutes to midnight" sounds awesome.

That's a bit of a fallacious argument, because on a 12 hour clock it's 11:58 PM.
It's as much 2 minutes to midnight on a 24 hour clock as on a 12 hour clock.

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by Noke Lieu on Apr 16^th, 2009, 3:18am

I see your point. It's just me rolling together digital watches and 24hr clock, I think.

Is it 2 minutes in midnight in Dutch, or in French?

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by towr on Apr 16^th, 2009, 4:06am

on 04/16/09 at 03:18:13, Noke Lieu wrote:

Is it 2 minutes in midnight in Dutch, or in French?

It would typically be "twee voor twaalf" in Dutch, i.e. "two to twelve". We're very good at spotting whether this twelve happens to be midnight or midday by noticing how dark it is outside ;)
We use the 24 hour clock for notation, but in conversation it's 12 based. However, rather than using am/pm, we just name the part of the day (i.e. 's ochtends, 's middags, 's avonds, 's nacht; or in English, in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, at night, respectively). Which you might do in English as well, but it gets exceedingly long; especially when you have to insert "o'clock" as well. "Eleven o'clock in the evening" (9/10 syllables) is a bit of a mouth full compared to "eleven pee em" (5 syllables); in Dutch it would make little difference since "elf uur 's avonds" (4 syllables) is short as it is.
At least in terms of telling time our language is a bit more efficient :P

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by Grimbal on Apr 16^th, 2009, 7:03am

In French, 23:58 is referred to as "minuit moins deux" ("midnight minus two"). 3:45 would be "quatre heures moins le quart" ("four hours minus a quarter").
We use "heure(s)" (hour) instead of "o'clock". For instance 3 heures 10. Usually we use 12 hours time. That's how our watches are made. If necessary, we add "in the morning, in the evening, at night, etc."

Germans have interesting 1/2 hours. For instance, 7:30 is called "halb acht" (half eight). It is half of the eighth hour.

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by towr on Apr 16^th, 2009, 7:31am

on 04/16/09 at 07:03:43, Grimbal wrote:

Germans have interesting 1/2 hours. For instance, 7:30 is called "halb acht" (half eight). It is half of the eighth hour.

Yeah, we have that in Dutch and Frisian too. It's one of the things that's rather important to learn because the English use "half past seven", so there's an hour difference if you misinterpret it.
And of course we get combinations with it, like 7:20 is "tien voor half acht", "ten before half[way to] eight". "Twenty past .." would be acceptable to, though; but for 7:25 it would be rare to use anything other then "vijf voor half acht".

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by JohanC on Apr 16^th, 2009, 2:40pm

on 04/16/09 at 07:03:43, Grimbal wrote:

Germans have interesting 1/2 hours. For instance, 7:30 is called "halb acht" (half eight). It is half of the eighth hour.

on 04/16/09 at 07:31:45, towr wrote:

Yeah, we have that in Dutch and Frisian too. It's one of the things that's rather important to learn because the English use "half past seven", so there's an hour difference if you misinterpret it.

Things are even weirder. Some British literally use "half eight" to indicate 8:30, which makes translating to German/Dutch/Frisian/Schwizertitsch a tricky business. The following link (http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=116616) even gives the impression that it is quite generally used. Nevertheless, I was very surprised when I heard this way of telling time for the first time.

Maybe a real Brit can explain how general this custom really is? Also, I wonder whether they also use "half twelve" and "half one", which really sound strange to me.

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by Grimbal on Apr 16^th, 2009, 2:56pm

on 04/16/09 at 14:40:09, JohanC wrote:

Also, I wonder whether they also use "half twelve" and "half one", which really sound strange to me.

In German, yes, but meaning 11:30 and 12:30. "Half one" for 0:30 is even mathematically correct. But they don't say "half noon" or "half midnight". Luckily. That would be really weird.

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by towr on Apr 16^th, 2009, 3:00pm

"at half past eight" gives about 60 thousand hits on google, about 6 thousand if we add site:uk
"at half eight" about 2.6 thousand, about 1.9 thousand with site:uk.
So it seems like a British thing, and has a bout 25% prevalence.

Of course, this is a highly inaccurate way to measure it, if we use
"at half past nine" site:uk we get 13 thousand and for
"at half nine" site:uk 700. Which makes about 5%

I'm not going to try all the options. We also don't know how many hits are "I've heard someone say this, is it correct?" (I suppose you could filter out sites that have both) But in any case it doesn't seem exceedingly rare.

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by Noke Lieu on Apr 16^th, 2009, 3:58pm

on 04/16/09 at 14:40:09, JohanC wrote:

Maybe a real Brit can explain how general this custom really is?

not strictly a real Brit- am a half caste. And I've been in Australia for the last 10 years. It doesn't seem unusual to me for someone to say "half 7" to mean 7:30. It makes me think of grannies, though.

Title: Re: grace jones for prime minister...
Post by rmsgrey on Apr 19^th, 2009, 3:42pm

I'd happily say and/or hear "half eight" etc (meaning half past) but I'd regard it as slightly lazy...