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Why is it that Americans refer to 24 hour time as military time? I understand that the military uses the 24hr format but I don’t understand why the general public would refer to it like that?

It makes it seem like it’s a foreign concept where as in a lot of countries it’s the norm.

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[-] dandroid@dandroid.app 92 points 1 year ago

Lots of good answers here, but I don't see anyone mentioning the minor differences between military time and 24 hour. With military time, they don't use a colon when writing it, and they always verbally say the leading zero. So a time using a 24 hour clock is written 06:00 or 6:00 and said verbally as "six o'clock", but with military time, it is written as 0600 and said verbally as "Oh six hundred hours".

That's it. That's the only difference. Though many Americans do indeed incorrectly call any 24 hour clock "military time". I myself used to say it incorrectly when I was a kid because my parents said it incorrectly.

[-] Terevos@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

Related question. Do 24 hour clock folks say fourteen o'clock if they're talking about 2pm?

[-] Alimentar@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

They say fourteen hundred or 2 o'clock. I've never really heard anyone say 14 o'clock.

[-] Player2@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 year ago

We definitely just called it 14 where I grew up

[-] Luke_Fartnocker@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

We called it 14 in Alabama. You're talking about age of censent, right?

[-] sznowicki@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

In both Polish and German people say fourteen o’clock.

[-] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking ~~thirteen~~ fourteen"

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this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
234 points (92.7% liked)

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