I noticed that I and Alexa say “six ‘oh’ five a m”, but is that the correct way of saying the time? Specifically the “oh” part?
Kind of like when speaking out a phone number, how we might say “my number is one two three, six ‘oh’ six…” but really, that’s not an “oh” like the letter O even though it looks like an O, but everyone knows the person is saying “six zero six”, which is the proper way of saying that.
Edit: thanks for all the answers everyone! This was just pure curiosity for me but I really enjoyed reading everyone’s responses and learning some new things!
Not that you asked, but the thing that I have most issues with is the AM in that time. I think you should drop that and just count to 23 with the hours instead of only to 12. It always confuses me if 12am is noon or midnight. And it’s superfluous anyways. We have enough numbers, no need to be stingy.
12:01AM is definitely 00:01, so 12AM is midnight.
Agree though, 24hr clock is just better.
Yeah, thanks. I don’t know how to get this into my brain. For me it’d just make as much sense that 12:01PM was 00:01. I always drift into looking at it like numbers in a succession… 10am, 11am, 12am, 1pm, … but that’s wrong. And the latin origin doesn’t help me either. Noon is neiter ‘before midday’ neither “post meridiem”. But it makes sense that the day starts at 00:00 with something AM and it keeps being AM for the first half.
It’s somehow the same weird thing with American people starting their week on Sunday (in the calendar). Despite the bible clearly telling us god took a day off on the seventh day. Though… I like taking taking a break and have a coffee before getting to work, so I don’t have an issue with that. 😁
The seventh day that God rested on, the sabbath, is observed on Saturday in Jewish and some Christian traditions.
Many businesses in the U.S. now start their week on Thursday.
Okay. Haven’t heard of that… What’s the reasoning behind that?
I don’t actually know the reasoning behind it. We have a rather small company and in 2003 we outsourced our accounting to a nationwide firm that does accounting for a lot of huge worldwide franchises. Our work weeks went from Monday to Sunday, but this accounting firm said that all their clients had Thursday to Wednesday weeks, so we had to change to that system. We’ve since taken our accounting system back inhouse, but we’ve kept the Thursday through Wednesday weeks.
I had never heard of that weekly system before 2003, but now I’ve realized that it’s quite popular. I think it’s more of a system used in franchise type companies rather than manufacturing or other type businesses.
That’s there because of analog clocks, which somebody in history decided would look too cluttered if they counted all 24 hrs, and at any rate we’re asleep for roughly a third of them anyway, so it’s superfluous. The 12-hr clock is an elegant design solution.
I’m not so sure. I get why it is the way it is. I think these numbers are called Highly composite numbers. That’s why we got 12 and 60. (But 24 would be another one.)
But it comes with issues. As I said you start with the 12 and then the one. That’s probably because the number zero had a complicated past. And now you have the clock going around twice a day and you need to prefix everything with am/pm. Or it’s clear from the context.
I think the number Pi is the same complicated concept. Why half around the circle and you need to memorize all the '2’s in the formulas? Why not make it once around the circle and use tau = 6.28… ?
So I think I can understand why we got there. But we have the number 0 nowadays. And electric light so we can stay up till 1am. So it seems an outdated concept to me to keep the 12 around. And if it were elegant, you wouldn’t need to specify which turn of the clock you’re talking about.
Once the kids of today finally can’t read analog clocks any more, the ‘cluttered’ argument is a thing of the past, anyways.
(Edit: I think you can already see this. Ask someone young about the time. And an old person. Maybe this is why OP asked the question anyways. Someone below a certain age will probably read you back the exact numbers on their digital clock. I’ve never seen a person in their 60s do this. They always say ‘quarter to nine’ or ‘a bit past six’. At least where I live (Germany) they do. And with the 24hour clock, we have both. You’d say ‘come over for tea at 5 o’clock’ but most people would write it down as 17:00, at least if it’s somewhat formal.)
IMO it’s confusing because it makes no sense, since I would think the 12 should always be the same AM / PM as the last 11 numbers. But it’s not. E.g. 1 hour after 11 PM is 12 AM.
If AM (ante meridiem) means “before midday” and PM (post meridiem) means “after midday”, then I think it makes sense. That doesn’t mean it isn’t confusing, but it makes sense.
Rly? Is midday 12 hours before or after midday, then?
I’m sure you can sort it all out from the information I’ve given you already.