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.

  • CorneliusTalmadge@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    There are watches that have an actual 24hr face as you describe the normal 6 position is 12 and 12 becomes 24. Which I think are fairly uncommon, I don’t recall ever seeing one in person.

    More common to just see analog watches with dual time markings say a 24 under the 12.

    An image search along the lines of “24hr watch face” will show some examples.

    • theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yes they are pretty uncommon, all the ones I have owned were old Russian ones that could be pretty unreliable and watch makers never wanted to touch them in terms of repairing them, hence why I have had a few. I believe the ones I had were made by ‘Raketa’

    • njordomir@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      As someone who really needs to visualize my day, I love phone and watch apps that use a 24h watch face. It’s very logical to display sunrise/sunset times and I even found an app that displays my calendar events as time slices in my clock pie.

      Always wanted to pick up a cool analog 24h watch too.

          • njordomir@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Yep, Sectograph, it has some annoyances, but generally very good. I never understood the flags and why it would use them instead of a pie piece for longer events. I wanted to get a big circular led display and make a sectograph wall clock, but the prices for circular led screens scared me off before I got started.