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this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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You don't know what "arbitrary" means..
Noon or midnight aren't arbitrary. They're the exact opposite. Noon is the middle of the day. The exact middle point of one revolution of our planet (roughly, days aren't actually exactly a day long but that's too advanced for you lol).
The exact middle of the day, recognisable to most people simply by looking up, is the exact opposite of arbitrary.
Uh, yes they do. That's why they're called numbers. "2" means || that many things and "5" means ||||| means that many things. There's literally an inherent meaning in them.
There's also actual reason as to why the day is divided the way it is, but seeing how proud you are of your overbearing ignorance, I'm not gonna educate you on what it is.
Hours weren't always the same length, it'd depend on the length of the time of day. Do you know what doesn't change? Noon being in the middle of the day. Because we're on a revolving piece of rock in space and no matter how much you stomp your foot and cry foul, noon will still always be non-arbitrary
What you need is a fkin dictionary bruh
Ah, some deeply meaningful willfull ignorance, because you can't admit you backed a moronic idea.
I didn't say they were. I said that the numbers we've attached to them are.
Strong words from someone who only reads three out of every five words.
Calling it the "middle of the day" is. It could very easily be the beginning of the day, or three-quarters of the way through the day. If you had lived with that your whole life, you would think it was normal.
Not as they're used in timekeeping. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I needed to explain something so simple to you as "the words I use are meant to be interpreted in the context in which I'm using them."
That's a lot of words to say "I don't know but there's probably a reason."
The real reason is "because the ancient Egyptians arbitrarily decided to divide it into twelve hours." As for indexing solar noon as 12:00, well, it actually didn't always; in fact, the word "noon" comes from the Latin word for "nine." The first hour of the day (when people woke up) was 1:00, roughly analogous to our 6am, and nine hours later (our 3pm) was "noon." The reason it became solar noon was that they observed a sort of coordinated universal time! Noon drifted earlier in the day as the center of culture drifted.
Sure it does. Other cultures make noon the beginning of the day, or make sunset the beginning of the day. Yes it changes the lengths of time periods. You only think it's weird because you've always known a world where noon was the middle of the day.
True. But noon as equal to 1200 will always be arbitrary, because we're on a rock in space and it didn't come with any numbers on it.
Once again, I beg you to actually use some reading comprehension. I haven't backed any ideas. But it's easier to sling insults than to read carefully and come up with a cogent response.
You keep with your naive argument about noon being arbitrary and pretend as if your proposal isn't like climbing up a tree arse first.
You're just wrong.
With your system, if you woke up after drinking for days, not knowing literally where on Earth you are, you would see a restaurant, read the sign and still have zero idea when it was open. You'd need to know where you are and "when" the times are. Ridiculous
With the regular system, you wake up anywhere in the world, look up at the sky, see it's roughly noon, and see a sign on a restaurant saying its open 10-21, you know you can walk in and eat.
You're trying to make yourself out as logical, but you're failing very fucking hard.
It's called the middle of the day, because it's in the middle of the day. Before it there's an equal amount of light as after it. Youre honestly going to stand here arguing that high-noon being in the middle of a DAY is arbitrary, without smelling a hint of irony?
Take a thing. Divide it exactly in half. Can you cut at an arbitrary point to make that happen...? Or is there like a thing where if you choose the exact point in the middle of that thing (like, an exact point, not an arbitrary one), then you get two halves which are exactly the same size?
You're clearly upset and projecting. Is English your first language? It's honestly amazing how often I end up correcting Americans on how to use English.
You didn't understand the point. I was talking about Romans. Happy desperate googling, mr angry-like-a-wet-cat!
You saying a thing doesn't make it so. For instance I could say that literally every word you said was arbitrary. It doesn't make it so, does it? Also, trying to use prescriptivism shows just how lacking you are in your linguistics conversational.
Me purposefully not replying to each of your childish retorts wouldn't help anything. You're just wrong but you'll never be able to accept it. You'll equivocate, possibly for weeks even.
I don't have any proposal at all, and until you get that into your head, I just don't see how you can possibly have enough of a basis to even continue this conversation intelligently.
Citation needed.
I. Don't. Have. A. System.
Bro, other languages exist. If you woke up after drinking for days, it's entirely likely that you won't be able to read the words on the sign and know whether it's a restaurant or a nursing home or a gambling parlor.
That there's what we call a tautology.
Nope. But you still aren't actually dealing with the reality that I'm not saying the word "noon" is arbitrary, I'm saying that the numbers we've assigned to it are. Remember, in the twelve hour clock, noon happens at the end of one set of numbers and at the beginning of the other set. In some timekeeping systems it's even weirder. Other choices could and have been made, and are even still in use.
I'm begging you. Give some indication that you are at all literate here.
Not sure what you're talking about. I'm having a great time watching you make a fool of yourself and froth at the mouth about how intelligent you are. It's hilarious.
Aw, sorry, I already noted that you're angry. You can't "no u" that one back at me. I'm deducting five indignation points.
...eh? I'm very clearly not being prescriptivist, since I'm the one taking about how the word has been used differently through time.
Are you feeding my posts to ChatGPT and asking for responses?
Ah, classic. "I don't have an actual argument, so I'll pretend like making one is beneath me and hope the other person makes it for me..."
"...and then I'll preemptively lay the table for me to exit the conversation with righteous indignation when I've used up all of my insults or gotten bored." Love it. Well done.
You don't understand what the word "arbitrary" means, lol.
I haven't laughed this hard in weeks.
With your imagined system of "if everyone had always lived with random ass times they would feel as normal as they do now".
No, they wouldn't, because unlike your ignorant-ass thinks, they aren't arbitrary. You don't understand the basic history of timekeeping and you have an utterly childish point, which is also wrong. Yes I know you're not directly proposing the use of another system, implications exist. You're just backing up on everything you've said after I rub your face in how stupid it's been, then you pretend you don't have a face full of poo.
It's ridiculous.
I speak 2 languages on a native level, one or two more fluently and a half a dozen in a "I could order in a restaurant" level. I'm pretty sure I know more expressions about time in more languages than you. How many languages do you speak?
This is why I keep replying. You're hilariously ironic. Remember you insisting how "numbers are inherently meaningless"? Scripts and languages change, sure, but most of the world uses Arabic numerals. :D It doesn't matter if you don't know the local language or "what time local noon is" or even if they're using the same alphabet, you'll still recognise a number like 14:00 - 03:00 and then look up at the sky and it's not yet noon and you'll know you'll have to wait several hours at least.
With as with an actually arbitrary system you might see numbers like 0748-5531 and have no fucking idea if it's even a time or even if it is a time, what time it's referring to, even if you know it's exactly midday.
But you'll not admit that laughable. Which in itself amuses me.
No shit, that's why I'm laughing at you. You're pretending like "noon" means nine because of its etymology, as in you're pretending as if you understand linguistics, when you don't understand that ignoring it's actual descriptive meaning of "mid-day" (which is why it's "high noon, because that's describing the position of the sun) is something even a first year linguist would never do. Hell, even if you had just read the basic wiki entry you'd know how ridiculous that is. But you're not about learning, you're about pretending you know things.
And I'm saying you are wrong in that. Because you are. You are wrong in saying that. Do you understand? You are incorrect. It is not arbitrary. Even the number 12 isn't arbitrary, neither is 24 or 100. That's not what the word means, sweetums. <3
Yes, I'm perfectly aware. Watching you prance around pretending to be smart is like watching toddlers bake mud cakes. It's cute how they think they're doing a credible job and you just have to act along so they can enjoy themselves. :)
Honestly you're literally making my sides hurt
Oh I'm not going anywhere, hunny. You're better entertainment than this show I'm watching.