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Comment on I hear phrases like "half-past", "quarter til", and "quarter after" way less often since digital clocks have became more commonplace.

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irish_link@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

What do you mean if your brain works in digital time. This doesn’t translate for me and I grew up with regular clocks and wrist watches. All time is the same. A clock with both hands facing 12 is and always has been twelve o’clock. Clock face or digital clock. They give the same time. Comparing two devices that give the same information in different ways to language is absurd.

Your comparison could work if the subject being discussed was 12 vs 24 hour time keeping. Then there is a translation between the two.

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Revan343@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Analog clocks lend themselves better to thinking in fractions of an hour or day, like this post is talking about, as an hour and a half day are both represented as a circle

Digital clocks lend themselves better to thinking in terms of number of minutes and hours directly. When working numerically, fractions of 60 are generally less intuitive, and fractions of 12 often so as well. Most people who don’t work with angles often think of fractions in terms of percent, or powers of two.

“Quarter past” kind of tweaks the brain wrong when a quarter is intuitively 25.

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- Feathercrown@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  fractions of 12 are unintuitive
  
  Really? I’ve always found them very pleasing.
  
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  - MadBob@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    They chose 12 precisely because it’s easy to divide!
    
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  - thistledown@rblind.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I wish our numeric system was base 12 instead of base 10!
    
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  - Revan343@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You’re on Lemmy, of course you like fractions of 12. It is a very convenient base, having so many factors, but most people don’t think like that
    
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    key@lemmy.keychat.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That might be the most obscure stereotype I’ve ever encountered.
    
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- AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s also precision. I think this is the biggest thing we’ve lost is some expression of precision.
  
  11:45 from a digital clock is very precise. You expect something at exactly that time, and get more impatient with vagaries of traffic or delays or clocks that aren’t synched, or just that people aren’t digital
  
  “quarter of” implies less precision. If I have to wait five minutes, you’re still not late. Regular human activity in the real world is not exact so allowing for inaccuracy is both less stressful and more practical
  
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intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Actually a digital clock with both hands pointing at twelve is not a digital clock.

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Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
oh i think this may be a cultural thing, here in europe when we say “digital time” we specifically mean 24-hour time because “AM/PM” isn’t used here.

It’s the difference between saying “dinner’s at seven” and “lunch ends at 13:30”

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- irish_link@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Ahhh!!! That totally makes sense. I took the comment to be about digital clocks specifically vs analog clocks. Not about the type of time keeping. Then the translation analogy totally makes sense and works! Gotta love learning new things from people. Thanks Swedneck!
  
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