12 hour vs. 24 hour time

[Kyriakos]

Which do you prefer? I keep all my devices I can on 24 hour time, but when I speak I use 12 hour time, so I don't confuse people. I think it would be simpler if we all used 24 hour time and no longer had to worry about a.m. and p.m., but considering how hard it is for the U.S. to switch to metric, I don't see it happening. I will say that in meteorology time is nice and simple with everything in UTC.

Wasn't 24 (instead of 12) used due to the time zones differences which would make it difficult to standardize the hour for work around the planet?
Anyway, here 12 is used when talking, followed by "meta messembrias" (post midday) and "pro messembrias" accordingly.

 

[Leifmk]

It's not "military time-telling". It's the normal, unambiguous way of counting time.

Yeah, although I confess I still use 12-hour time in an informal way, mainly when talking to someone face-to-face where the context would usually make things unambiguous and any misunderstanding could be cleared up instantly. For any kind of written note or message though, 24-hour time it is.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's not "military time-telling". It's the normal, unambiguous way of counting time.

For you. For me, I just specify am or pm and the time zone (if necessary).

Funny how I've been able to get along like that for the past 53 years...

 

[warpus]

24 hour time all the way. 12 hour clock is imprecise and can lead to screwups. Like you setting your alarm when you're drunk and accidentally setting it for 8pm instead of 8am.

Same for me, military (24h) time for all of my devices, 12 hour time when talking to people..."See you at 18:00 hours doesn't sound good"...

When the context is clear you don't need to use 24 hour clock. That's what we do in Poland. Officially everything runs on the 24 hour clock, that's how it's written down everywhere, but when you're just talking to your friends and the context is clear, you just say: "See you at 6", "Dinner is at 5", or "Wake me up at 9".

When I look at 19:00 my brain sees "7". That's how I was brought up, 19:00 and 7pm are interchangeable. My brain sees one and thinks the other, etc.

So yeah, that's my preferred method: Use the 24 hour clock on appliances, in applications, TV guides, whenever you have to write it down in an official capacity, etc. But when you're just talking to your friends and the context is clear, use the 12 hour clock. If you feel like it throw in "In the morning" or "In the afternoon". Or don't. Whatever the context dictates. Sometimes using the 24 hour clock when speaking makes sense, but from my experience most people will just say "7" or "4" or whatever and not "19:00" or "16:00". Those who prefer to be super specific might say "See you at 16:00". Whatever works for you.

I never thought of the 24 hour clock as "military time" until I came to Canada and people were calling it that here. It's just .. regular time for me. The military might use it, fine, whatever, but they also shave their heads and kill people. The United Federation of Planets officers use it too, so I'm going to be calling it "Star Trek time". Makes the same amount of sense to me

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The United Federation of Planets officers use it too, so I'm going to be calling it "Star Trek time".

Starfleet is a military organization.

If you were ever to say to me, "See you at 16:00" I'd just stand there waiting for the rest of the address. If you said, "See you at 4 pm" I would know what you meant.

 

[warpus]

Well yeah, you were born in Canada, so I would never use that sort of language with you.

Good point about Star Fleet.. but I was talking about the Federation as a whole. They seem to use the 24 hour clock and in everyday speech sometimes shorten it as they see fit (like we do in Poland)

 

[Akka]

I'm an European Master Race, so we do it in the more logical way - like with the metric system or a non-absurd date format - with a 24 hours clock.

 

[Angst]

to me, 8 am is denominated as 08, midnight as 00, 7 pm as 19. I try to internalize the 24 hour metre when speaking but usually stick to the 12 hour metre there.

 

[BirraImperial]

We do use the metric system here, but most people use the 12 hour clock for everything...I seem to prefer military time for its convenience...No need to specify if it's, let's say 5 PM or AM, you just say 05:00 or 17:00 hours...

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, if you move something for 361 degrees, and it has a significance other than being moved for 1 degree, it would make sense to note so. But that is a progression which (if there is significance) can go on for infinite degrees, unlike with standard time, which only has two runs of 12. I mean, taken to extreme, you could have numbers over 24 to signify a next day.

 

[trader/warrior]

24 on my clocks and in writing, mostly 12 in speaking.

One thing I never thought about before is I don't believe we have an equivalent of AM/PM commonly used in Norwegian. When using 12 hour time and there is potential for confusion people will say "at 3 in the night", "8 in the morning", "12 in the day" and so on unless switching to 24. Pretty inefficient.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

If you really want to go full metric you shouldn't really be basing your system on 12 OR 24. How about adopting "New Time" where midnight is 0.0, noon is 0.5, all the way up to 0.999999 just before midnight. So instead of "Let's meet at 4pm" or "Let's meet at 1600 hours" you could just say "Let's meet at 0.666666 recurring". What could be simpler?

 

[Kyriakos]

I think that radians should be used, tbh.

 

[warpus]

24 on my clocks and in writing, mostly 12 in speaking.

One thing I never thought about before is I don't believe we have an equivalent of AM/PM commonly used in Norwegian. When using 12 hour time and there is potential for confusion people will say "at 3 in the night", "8 in the morning", "12 in the day" and so on unless switching to 24. Pretty inefficient.

This is how it works in Polish too, and it doesn't seem very inefficient to me, but to be fair I don't speak Polish on a day to day basis, so maybe I'm just ignorant. Usually we stick to the 12 hour clock when speaking day to day, and most of the time you don't need to specify if it's 8:00 or 20:00. You just say "8" and people usually know which one it is. If it's specifically morning and you need to be clear you just say "at 8 in the morning" like you said. From my experience and memory that doesn't happen very often. Usually the context makes is clear. And if it's in the evening and you need to be specific for whatever reason, you can always say "See you at 16:00" instead of saying "See you at 4 in the afternoon", but either one sounds fine in Polish and doesn't seem like much of a bother. In Polish you can also say "rano" which is 2 syllables, which means "morning". So it's exactly the same amount of work as saying "a.m.", which is also 2 syllables. The word for "evening" is 3 syllables, so just 1 syllable longer than "p.m.". There wouldn't be much efficiency gained by switching over to a.m. and p.m. and you would lose the precision

 

[Tee Kay]

My preferred preference is 24-hours. My actual preference is 12-hours since that's what everyone in my country uses.

 

[Snerk]

+1 for metric time.

 

[trader/warrior]

This is how it works in Polish too, and it doesn't seem very inefficient to me, but to be fair I don't speak Polish on a day to day basis, so maybe I'm just ignorant.

Well, considering I never really noticed it before it isn't really noticably inefficient. The vast majority of the time, say, 16.00 will just be said as simply "four o'clock" with no need for distinction. But when using 12 hour time, having a one word distinction would just make sense to me. Not sure, but I guess most (at least non-english European) languages don't actually use the AM/PM term or equivalent.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

No-one really says "am" or "pm" verbally in England, they're really just written. The only real exception to that is when people are talking about the early hours of the morning, such as 1am, 2am or 3am where, for some reason, it becomes quite common to say it. In my experience anyway.

 

[Kyriakos]

You can use (a synecdoche) and say x in the morning/night, although a lot of hours are in neither.
Then again, a synecdoche would do the same in terming Autumn as Winter and Spring as Summer, while the opposite would be weird.

 

[Snerk]

No-one really says "am" or "pm" verbally in England, they're really just written. The only real exception to that is when people are talking about the early hours of the morning, such as 1am, 2am or 3am where, for some reason, it becomes quite common to say it. In my experience anyway.

Makes sense. If someone said to me I got up at three o'clock today. I would assume it was three pm not am.