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Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

The first thing I learned in the US: nobody says half past or ten to or any of those things. They only make sense on analog round clocks.

What people say is stuff like "six twenty", "four fiftyfive" etc

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I think that's beside the point though. I think the point being presented is more: if you are visualizing what time it is in your head, what is the visual representation of time that you have, as presented by your language? In english, if it's 4:23, I feel as though I'm "in" the 4:00 hour, 23 minutes past it. 4:45? Well then I feel like I'm still "in" the 4:00 hour but now 45 minutes into it. Even 4:59 still feels like the 4:00 hour!

The very construct of how a different language presents that time may cause that perception to differ. At least that's how I think of it.

> The first thing I learned in the US: nobody says half past or ten to or any of those things.

I hear people say those all the time. Somewhat less with people under 30 or so.

> They only make sense on analog round clocks.

Actually, 10 minutes til <hour> makes perfect sense as a description of time independent of any mechanism of displaying the time.

It's not a natural way to read a digital clock, but not all discussion of time proceeds from reading clocks. Also, analog round wall clocks (and watches, and digital faces for smart watches that simulate them) still exist, and aren't that uncommon, taken together.

I grew up being taught how to say "half past or ten to" in school, but I think people stopped doing it when digital clocks became cheap and ubiquitous (in the 90s).

For a while, as a joke, I used to say stuff like "it's 5 till a quarter past X" or "it's 20 past a quarter to Y". It tends to throw people off.

Dunno why you're being downvoted. American here and I honestly can't remember the last time I've heard "half past" or "quarter til", and I don't think I've ever said it. It's essentially always "five thirty" or "six forty five".

It's probably mostly a British thing. We use it a lot in Australia too - 'twenty to four' 'half past nine' - probably a little less common than saying it like 'six thirty' or 'two twenty-five' though.

It's very generational in the US. I hear it mostly from those over 40

Yes we do. What we don't do is the German- we don't say "halb sechs" (half to six, 5:30). We would say "half past five".

Many people are used to telling precise time from being insanely overworked all the time, so you need to say it is precisely 5:33 because 5:27 is a world of difference.

FWIW I once missed a flight because I remembered that my flight was at "half past" and there was a flight to the same destination at 6:25am and at 6:30am. At the same terminal. On different gates.

Didn't even keep reading the board after I spotted the 6:25 flight. It was the wrong one.

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