o'clock usage

[Garrett Wollman]

We say "o'clock", as in "it's just after one o'clock", quite
freqently. I had a hunch that the common use of shorter, more precise
numerical times ("1:00" or "1300") would have driven this form out of
writing. I went to ngram viewer and was a little surprised at what I
saw: the peak is actually in the middle 19th century, and the
frequency of "o'clock" has actually risen a bit in recent years.

For some reason, the peaks in the eng_GB corpus is about 20 years
earlier than the peak in eng_US, but whne combined, the US peak
overwhelms the GB peak.

<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=o%27clock%3Aeng_us%2Co%27clock%3Aeng_gb&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3>

-GAWollman

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Post by Garrett Wollman
We say "o'clock",

The rest of your message leaves me in doubt: Are you talking about
spoken language?

[Garrett Wollman]

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen

Post by Garrett Wollman
We say "o'clock",

The rest of your message leaves me in doubt: Are you talking about
spoken language?

I am talking about a difference in how times are written compared to
how they are spoken in the absence of a written reference.

-GAWollman

[Hibou]

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen

Post by Garrett Wollman
We say "o'clock",

The rest of your message leaves me in doubt: Are you talking about
spoken language?

My guess is that it is commoner in speech and speech written down
(dialogue). I think in writing, I'd put "13.00" or "one p.m.", depending.

If ordering a taxi, I try to give the time in two different ways, to
reduce the chance of a mistake: "Six-twenty" and "Twenty past six", for
instance.

As it happens, none of these examples uses 'o'clock'.

Bonus: the One-o'Clock gun at Edinburgh Castle (used as a time signal in
the past):

(36s)

<https://www.edinburghcastle.scot/see-and-do/highlights/one-oclock-gun>

[Steve Hayes]

On Wed, 4 Dec 2024 06:09:09 +0000, Hibou

Post by Hibou

Post by Bertel Lund Hansen

Post by Garrett Wollman
We say "o'clock",

The rest of your message leaves me in doubt: Are you talking about
spoken language?

My guess is that it is commoner in speech and speech written down
(dialogue). I think in writing, I'd put "13.00" or "one p.m.", depending.
If ordering a taxi, I try to give the time in two different ways, to
reduce the chance of a mistake: "Six-twenty" and "Twenty past six", for
instance.

In South Africa "half six" would be confusing, due to uncertaint
whether it was 30 minutes before the hour or 30 minutes after. "Half
past six" removes the ambiguity.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Steve Hayes
In South Africa "half six" would be confusing, due to uncertaint
whether it was 30 minutes before the hour or 30 minutes after. "Half
past six" removes the ambiguity.

In Australia "half six" is not used at all. If you ordered a taxi for
half six, it might turn up at three o'clock.

[Tony Cooper]

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Steve Hayes
In South Africa "half six" would be confusing, due to uncertaint
whether it was 30 minutes before the hour or 30 minutes after. "Half
past six" removes the ambiguity.

In Australia "half six" is not used at all. If you ordered a taxi for
half six, it might turn up at three o'clock.

It is not a term used in the US. Only those who watch British movies,
or read books by British authors, would understand the meaning.