• isthingoneventhis@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Yeah the mathing bits I knew were from something older, the entire equation I don’t remember offhand. French has been mostly repressed.

    I’m more upset about time verbage being absolutely fucked and … crap I think it’s 30 minutes… into the hour instead of before? It’s so confusing and I get it backwards constantly because who fucking counts time like that even.

    Like half til 6 (or however you say it idk) is 5:30 and not … 6:30 or some asinine BS. I will take strange ye olde numbers over that shit any day. I just default to 24 hour time because I absolutely cannot be assed and it’s very dumb. I’ve explained it very poorly but hopefully it makes sense lol. And they use quarter/half past like please… please stop, just tell me weird numbers.

    • yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Hah! Yeah, I understand, but I’ve been hearing this in spoken English as well, „half seven“ instead of „half past six“, though in school I was taught only the latter existed.

      It’s like this in German as well, and it’s also regionally different, but once you get it it’s actually nice:

      In most parts of Germany (and where I grew up) and in Standard German you tell time (literally) as:

      Six, quarter past six, half seven, quarter before seven, seven.

      In the south of Germany it’s: six, quarter past six, half seven, three quarter seven, seven. This never made sense to me, until…

      … I moved to East Germany, where it’s: six, quarter seven (!), half seven, three quarter seven, seven.

      Imagine my face, I never even had heard of this before I moved there 😂

      I immediately picked this up because it rolls off your tongue way easier in German than the standard way. And it’s mindblowingly logical. I love it:

      You just need to imagine an hour as a cake: one quarter of seven, half of seven, three quarters of seven, seven. Genius.