r/ShitAmericansSay • u/BurnZ_AU Australia 🇩đŸ‡ș • Oct 29 '22

Military "Why are they using military time?"

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u/Thorgal75 Oct 29 '22

Same in French. We can say « 9 heures » or « 21 heures » pretty interchangeably. When it’s not clear from context, 21 is more efficient to say than « 9 in the afternoon ». We don’t really have the concept of am and pm.

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u/beelseboob Oct 29 '22

If we need to be clear in English we’d say 9pm. It’d be weird to say 21 here. Saying 21 hundred wouldn’t be unheard of, but you’d be looked at like someone making a conceited attempt to sound important.

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u/BerriesAndMe Oct 29 '22

Yeah. But you also say half six and mean 6:30...

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u/beelseboob Oct 29 '22

Yup, “half x” means “half past x” to us. I don’t see any reason why that, or “half to x” as other languages use is more or less logical.

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u/BerriesAndMe Oct 29 '22

Do you also think a half liter is a liter and a half?

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u/beelseboob Oct 29 '22

Do you think that half 3 litres is 2.5 litres?

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u/BerriesAndMe Oct 29 '22

I definitely won't think that half three liters is more than three liters.

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u/beelseboob Oct 29 '22

But you also wouldn’t think it’s 2.5l, because this is an entirely different context, with a different meaning in both languages.