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Comment by roywiggins | Hacker News Reader

Vaguely related: I don't think people are being taught how to read analog clock faces nearly as much anymore, and apparently phrases like "quarter past ten" are becoming, so to speak, anachronisms.

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Technology Connections did it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NeopkvAP-ag

Bonus on analog vs digital mechanism in flip clocks:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZArBfxaPzD8

The only one that I know of as being an anachronism is saying "quarter of" or similar. At one point people decided that 'of' meant 'to' and after a while we forgot that because it was stupid. People still say quarter past though.

My teenage daughter needs me to explain it to her every time I say either "quarter past" or "quarter to"

past and to are pretty self explanatory if you know English at all.

Also vaguely related, I've come to realize some people find metric measurements easier than feet and inches.

I find the fractions simpler. Need a half of that half? Just double the denominator.

My wife would seemingly rather keep counting .1 centimeters.

The same applies with clocks. It's easier for me to rough out how long I have if I just chop the face into fractions vs mental arithmetic, as brutal as that sounds. What do you mean this guy can't divide 30 in half?

Romans were using both : "metric/decimal" for numbers, but "imperial/dozenal" for fractions :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_abacus

(Base 12x5=60 was of course used by their Babylonian predecessors.)

If only we were a species with six fingers per hand.

But 15 minutes is a quarter of an hour regardless of whether you are using an analog or a digital clock to read the time.

The spatial representation on an analogue clockface is far more evident. Each 15 minute interval sweeps out a quarter of the face with the minute hand.

I don't thing a spatial representation is any more necessary here than it is for referring to 25 cents as a quarter of a dollar.

a "quarter" means 1/4th -- it's a "quarter" turn of rotation on a physical clock, but 60/4 is always 15.

or were you making the distinction between "quarter past" and "quarter after", because I'd agree that the former is a lot less common.

I'm not sure, but either way, "it's a quarter past 6" has gotten me blank stares.

In Germany, that would be quarter 7, which means either the quarter in the 7th hour or the 7th time that a quarter has passed since the hour, which is of course that same. (Unless you are in a part, that got conquered by the US after 2WW, which now uses "English time".)

Public schools here in suburban Boston MA still teach analog first.

Don't kids know how to tell the time before they go to school?

Mine did. Most don't.

So do the public schools here, and we have 3 analog clocks in my house, but 3/4 of my children cannot read an analog clock, and 2/4 of them do not understand me when I say "quarter past" or "quarter to" no matter how many times I explain it.

This is regional. US never used quarters afaik.

Oh yes, I grew saying "quarter past four." Probably don't anymore, but it was definitely in the vernacular in the US in years past.

What do you mean? People in the US routinely use "quarter after" and "quarter to" when telling time.

I've only ever lived in NE USA, but I have traveled, and I definitely don't think it's regional.

Generational though, sure.

No, its absolutely widespread that they do.

You can confirm this by searching "quarter past" at any significant US website, e.g., the NY Times:

<https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Anytimes.com+%22quarter+past>

"Quarter of" or "quarter to" are less frequent, but can be found and heard.

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