ParanetOnline
McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: MClark on March 04, 2013, 09:10:42 PM
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My test readers have advised I use the european/military 24 hour clock (13:00 for 1 pm, 20:00 for 8pm etc) for my story and I concur.
My question is how do european civilians describe such times when speaking? I know the military says thirteen hundred hours and such. I do not recall european civilians I've talked with using such terms. I don't recall any instances of people using the 24 hour clock in speech in shows like Dr Who or Misfits. Do I just use numerals 03:15 or 13:20 and let the reader figure it out?
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Can't help you sorry. I thought all medical professionals used military time at work, Doctors and Nurses and such. But then I came here to the philippines in south east asia and they use am/pm with the 1-12 system.
So I'm in the weeds as well.
The Deposed King
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I am from england
I use both interchangably
or say both one after the other
but am most confitable with 24 hour clock
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In conversation, most Europeans don't use the 24-hour clock. We say "one o'clock," "a quarter to three" or "half past five." On occassion we might use the terms "am" and "pm" but we're more likely to say "two in the morning" and "five in the evening/afternoon."
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at school here we don't do that
timings are in 24hour clock
it might just be that I am of a younger geniration... so use mostly 24hour
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Maybe, I've just never heard the 24-hour clock used in day to day conversation anywhere.
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I use it
specially on the phone when talking to people in different time zones
and a lot at school...
again it might be a geniration thing
older people use it less then people my age and teachers use 24hour more nowerdays
I use both depends who I talk to
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Ease up on the age talk, I'm only 32! :P
I'd still be willing to say that the average person doesn't use the 24-hour clock in conversation. Definitely in Ireland almost nobody ever does, except maybe in office environments quoting e-mails or in IT departments. But not casual conversation. We have lunch at one o'clock, not 13:00 hours.
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Maybe, I've just never heard the 24-hour clock used in day to day conversation anywhere.
The French use both methods interchangeably.
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We use the 24 hour clock format quite a lot, but then I work with that sort of crowd a lot so that might explain a few things...
13:15 I'd say as thirteen fifteen, 17:57 would be seventeen fifty-seven and 00:30 would, for me, be midnight thirty or zero zero thirty.
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Ease up on the age talk, I'm only 32! :P
I'd still be willing to say that the average person doesn't use the 24-hour clock in conversation. Definitely in Ireland almost nobody ever does, except maybe in office environments quoting e-mails or in IT departments. But not casual conversation. We have lunch at one o'clock, not 13:00 hours.
I was talking about people in there late teens :P
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Stop making me feel old! :-[
In my day-job I do hear the IT department use the 24-hour clock when discussing system logs and other tech-stuff that goes way over my head. I suppose there's more of a need to be precise about that kind of information in that environment.
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sorry
if it makes you feel better your younger then my parents
I do a lot of science at school we use it a lot then...
we also have are school day planed on a 24hour clock
as I spend most of my time there I guess I am used to it
I think most people in day to day it would depend on what clock was nearest them (asking time) when they are speaking
and the situation
meeting up with friends is very different to trying to brake in to a bank for example or doing a milatry opiration
(I don't have expirence with any of the above :P )
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Oh definitely. I would expect any kind of tactical operation to feature characters using the 24-hour clock. Or police/military characters on duty, etc.
But It'd find it very strange to read a book where a guy asks a girl on a date and says he'll pick her up at 20:00 hours. Unless it was meant as humour.
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yes it would be quite strange
unless that person is a geeky type teenager or for mentioned opiration/ person on duty
it porberly would not happen
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It's actually quite embarrassing how often you slip into 24 hour when talking to people that don't use it; fortunately for me most of my friends understand (both the system and my habits) but it's worse when you add "Z" or say "local" after every time.
We do this because some of our clocks are kept on GMT time (called "Zulu" time or "Z" - pronounced "Zed") and some are on local time (BST for example) called "local." Some of our clocks, in fact pretty much all of them, have the letter Z or L written on the clock face so you know what zone it's set on.
To further confuse things some time zones have their own designation so you might have a clock on Z, one on L and one on P time; it's weird hearing "aircraft due in a eleven thirty papa."
Further to the original question, for single digit hours people either use "oh" or "zero" depending on personal preference and it's not guaranteed to remain consistent. I know I usually refer to the shift start time as "oh-seven-fifteen" but I might call 5 am "oh-five-hundred" or "zero-five-hundred."
And 32 is definitely NOT old! 82 I'll start to accept as old but only just. (Yeah, that's the number of candles for me as well and I haven't even had a sub-life crisis yet, let alone a mid-life one!)
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Here in Sweden you would get the 24-hour clock in writing (like on signs and notifications), but interchangeably using 12-hour-clock or 24-hour clock in speech (never using the equivalent of AM or PM). The useage of 24 hour clock in speech would be restricted mainly to full half hours. eg 16:30. For say 16:25 it would be said "five in half five" bu for 16:20 it would be "twenty past four"..
And btw, if you are setting your story in Europe, make certain you read upon the date-formats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601). And yes there are differenes between the way you would write dates in headers and freeform text. And for some stupid reason the best-before date on food is written in the form DD-MM-YY or sometimes even just DD-MM. Did I mention that there is nothing indicating this order on food-products themselves which is really really stupid. E.g. 10/05/11 could theoretically mean that it was 11th of May 2010, or 10th of May 2011 or 5ft of October 2011 or other strange combinations...
As a side note: The US system of writing things are probably the WORST way of doing it when it comes to sorting data on a computer. For written dates you want it in the YYYY-MM-DD form for sorting.
/Ulfgeir
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The French use both methods interchangeably.
I'd say there's a slight preference for 24-hour clock in common usage in Montreal, but not by any means exclusively, in English, but I do not think I have ever heard anyone use am/pm talking French here.
In what I am writing right now, the main culture uses metric time with a ten-hour day. They get the scale of confusion and mistakes you would expect when trying to cope with cultures using the older format.
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And btw, if you are setting your story in Europe, make certain you read upon the date-formats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601). And yes there are differenes between the way you would write dates in headers and freeform text. And for some stupid reason the best-before date on food is written in the form DD-MM-YY or sometimes even just DD-MM. Did I mention that there is nothing indicating this order on food-products themselves which is really really stupid. E.g. 10/05/11 could theoretically mean that it was 11th of May 2010, or 10th of May 2011 or 5ft of October 2011 or other strange combinations...
As a side note: The US system of writing things are probably the WORST way of doing it when it comes to sorting data on a computer. For written dates you want it in the YYYY-MM-DD form for sorting.
/Ulfgeir
reminds me of
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/iso_8601.png) from
http://www.xkcd.com/1179/ (http://www.xkcd.com/1179/)
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And here btw is a cool link that indicates lots of weird stuff regarding time...
Believed false thinga about time (http://infiniteundo.com/post/25509354022/more-falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-time-wisdom) Found it at Slashdot.com when I was surfing at work earlier today... Some I will have to look up to verify.
/Ulfgeir
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I'd say there's a slight preference for 24-hour clock in common usage in Montreal, but not by any means exclusively, in English, but I do not think I have ever heard anyone use am/pm talking French here.
This afternoon a weird old guy at a bus stop asking for the time proved me wrong on that last one.
Still, that's once in more than a decade.
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okay, the dialogue in question is a police officer describing a series of criminal events, so I'll use something like zero three fifteen for 3:15 am.
I may still have people casually refer to am/pm, but only civilians during off hours.
Thanks for all the replies!
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For what its worth, Ive always hear it said as "oh-three fifteen" instead of "zero-three fifteen"