Ah, yes, good old metric time.
You probably grew up in the era of digital clocks and watches. If you used an analog watch you would know why it was easier to say a quarter to 10. 😁
To make me show up 30 minutes late because I misheard it as quarter past 10?
Way easier to just say and understand 9:45 with whatever clock you use.
Because that means the person is old and can’t count from 10 to 9 and change 1/4 to 3/4?
No it means that they grew up using a 12 hour, 60 minute circular time system. Habits form when you learn stuff and can last a lifetime.
Most people I know would simply say 9:45 instead of 1/4 to 10 when looking at an analog clock. We were taught to mentally do some minor math, same habits, just better I guess.
Just different and from a different school of thought. If you consider the convenience of conveying how close the time is to the hour, it’s actually a quick shorthand. I can see you don’t like it however it’s just the way people think of time. It’s not like they can’t do the math because if they have a digital clock they have to convert 9:45 into a quarter to 10. It’s the way they think about time.
It’s what is laziest and easiest for them. Some people are simply taught to think of others while conversing instead of just themselves.
View it from their perspective, they all converse perfectly together because that’s how everyone told the time however other people want to change the rules. They aren’t being rude or impolite just using the system they grew up with.
lol
Think of the children
Narcism is a better look?
And how does that even apply here anyways?
For me, it’s because when I look at an analog clock, it’s easier to see that there’s a quarter of the cycle left on the minute hand than to convert 9 to 45 mins. So if someone asks me for the time and I looked at an analog clock, I would be more likely to respond with the relative position of the minute hand than with the exact minutes. If I am looking at a digital clock, then I will read exactly what the clock says.
I love this guy’s humor and presentation. It’s so peculiar and original to me.
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This is the correct explanation. Having grown up in a house full of analog clocks and preferring them still today, it’s hard for me to understand the difficulty so many people have using analog, or why it’s hard to interpret the logic used in conveying it. But it really is just a matter of immersion and perspective. People who prefer analog appear to perceive time in fractions and circular cycles. Half to/past, quarter to/past, etc. are how we actually view and perceive the day. It’s more than just a number.
It’s more than just a number.
I like the way you explained it. This is how it feels when I interpret time from an analog clock.
You joke, but some people are actually that dumb.
I used to work in the oilfield, first day on a new rig with a new company. We were swabbing (pulling fluid samples, super laid back work) and had 2 guys on, 2 guys off.
Sitting in the doghouse our driller yells over to the rig asking what time it is, I check the clock and yell back “About twenty to four” dude puts his hands on his hips like Karen would and starts to glare at me. My push leans out the window and yelled “Two Four Zero” blew my fucking mind.
Few days later he was dropping people off and we were at a new site so he changed pick up time to quarter to six. But in his mind that meant 25 minutes before 6, or 5:35. Needless to say he got there and I wasn’t ready, which as a new roughneck on a crew is a cardinal sin.
Got in the truck and we drove about a block and I apologized and said I wasn’t expecting him so soon. Dude pulled over looked over his shoulder at me and said “How quarters in a dollar, retard?”. I replied “Four?” “Wrong twenty five!”
Needless to say that job didn’t last long for me.
It’s hard to imagine. I guess some people just don’t picture a clockface or proportional time.
This dude was just a crack head whose father happened to own a rig company.
He couldn’t write his own name, basic math skills was a luxury he didn’t enjoy, but he was a genius when it came to fixing diesel engines and hydraulics.
Truly an enigma amoung men.
9.75
Commented just to say that this is the way it should be written, if it was a quarter to ten.
“how much does a ticket cost?”
“A quarter til 3”
In danish this is basically how it’s done on increments of a half.
One and one half is said as half (til) two
But it’s only on small numbers. It goes Half, one, half til two, two, half til three (or optionally two and a half!), three, three and a half…
Dont even get me started on the rest of the numbers
When I was a child, I lived in walking distance of my elementary school. One time my mom had to work early so she couldn’t be there to see me off to school. I was old enough to walk by myself at that point, but I relied on her to tell me when to go. Since she wasn’t going to be there, she told me to leave at “quarter after 7” so I could be there on time.
I left at 7:25 because a quarter is 25, right?
I got in trouble for being late to school. Instructions unclear, Mom!
I’m not sure if this meme is doubly trolling me here, but please tell me nobody says “a quarter til ten” instead of “quarter to ten”!
What’s the difference?
Maybe it’s having been raised in the south, but I’m used to hearing both. Maybe it’s a regional difference?
Though if I go for til these days, I’m more likely to say until rather than just til lol
The difference is I’ve never heard anyone say “quarter til ten” before so it sounds very strange. As for it being a regional difference I guess it depends what region of the world you were raised in the south of!
I’ve only ever heard “to” as well, never “til”. Although the latter does make more sense, the former rolls off the tongue a lot easier.
In german you’d just say quarter ten, half ten and three quarters ten for 9:15, 9:30 and 9:45 respectively
Madness!
Though not every region in Germany will do that, some think it’s stupid, but it makes sense to me.
Quarter ten for example means a quarter of the tenth hour is over, so 9:15. There’s good logic behind it, at least
What? That must be a bavaria/switzerland/austria thing. I never heard this. hearing quarter ten (Viertel zehn?) i’d assume 10:15 and most definitly not 09:15 0.o I’ll stay with quarter before ten for (viertel vor zehn) 09:45 and quarter after ten (viertel nach zehn) for 10:15.
BaWü, but even there not everyone says it like that
I would say “quarter of” 10. So there.
Isn’t ‘quarter of’ 10:15?
(I always use “quarter to” or “quarter til”, but never “quarter of”)
I got 2:30, but I doubt that’s what they mean
Haha I like that take on it. Idk, that’s just always how I’ve always said it. That is, when I don’t say 9:45 like a normal human. Northeast US, if that makes a difference
You’re just fucking with me now!
“Quarter on ten” checking in :p
Yep
Quarter “until” makes more sense than quarter to.
Well it’s language, it’s pretty arbitrary, you say what you learned rather than what makes the most sense
Just wanted to represent your “nobody”!
You’ve pulled back the curtain to reveal horrors beyond my imagination!
Another member of the “til” gang here!
I would also completely understand “to”, though, but I just don’t use it.
Those “quarter of” weirdos can fuck directly off though. That one makes zero sense to me haha.
I prefer saying it’s 9:270°
9:3π/2 rad
Hate to be a stickler, but wouldn’t 9:75 actually be a quarter AFTER 10 seeing as how it’d be 10:15 equivalent?
I’m afraid you’re not counting all 100 minutes in an hour.
Ah damn. I used imperial time units instead of metric. My bad.
In 1788, Claude Boniface Collignon proposed dividing the day into 10 hours or 1,000 minutes, each new hour into 100 minutes, each new minute into 1,000 seconds, and each new second into 1,000 tierces (older French for “third”). The distance the twilight zone travels in one such tierce at the equator, which would be one-billionth of the circumference of the earth, would be a new unit of length, provisionally called a half-handbreadth, equal to four modern centimetres. Further, the new tierce would be divided into 1,000 quatierces, which he called “microscopic points of time”. He also suggested a week of 10 days and dividing the year into 10 “solar months”.[7]
So, half past 9 is 9:50. I’ll be damned.
It 645 mins since the start of the day
The current time is 1702477545
I was scrolling to find this answer, ty for your service 🫡
585 mins, you mean. That’s 35.1 kiloseconds.
nine-colon-seventyfive
Real.
my parents always say it’s “quarter of”. I can’t make it make sense.
I knew a mathy type who would occasionally jokingly say “a third past”
I think Kafka used stuff like “two and a third” sometimes
Right?!
Quarter til, quarter after…those are easy to understand. Same goes for half past.
But quarter of? I have no idea how that relates to the passage of time.
