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.
It’s interesting that it’s not as widespread amongst the public.As far as I know, the rest of the world either uses it or is able to understand it whereas I’ve had the opposite with Americans. I’m a very limited sample size though.
Americans understand it just fine.
Just like I understand what a meter is, but in real life, I would NEVER use the meter as a unit of measurement.
Yeah, I know metric is the better system, I agree. This isn’t about that. It’s about saying something and not making the listener take a moment to convert it into how they relate to the world.
Americans do not understand it just fine. I’ve had my phone on 24h time for years and the amount of fellow Americans who are completely baffled by it baffles me.
I’d say that’s probably more because they are morons and not because they are American.
I mean, can be both
Look up the “theory of American exceptionalism”. In short there is a very strong belief here that America is one of a kind and things that may work for others simply don’t apply here.
Explains why the US stocks a 12hr clock, messed up month/day/year mission, imperial measurement and a ton of other things that any foreigner will find anywhere from quirky to infuriating.
IMHO the exceptionalism theory is a b.s. lazy way of keeping things conservative and unchanged and shutting down any discussion of uncomfortable progress.
US and international date standards all suck : ISO8601 on the other hand is beautiful
It’s not even imperial measurements - the US has its own customary units.
There was a theory I read at one point, that for the life of me I can’t remember the name of, that basically described a generalized form of exceptionalism, but for different categories.
Basically, the “most something” countries in any particular category are going to have exceptional circumstances that make what other countries do not always apply.
India, having the largest population, faces demographic problems that solutions that work in the Netherlands just can’t address.
Same with Russian transportation infrastructure, and ultimately American economic issues.
“American Exceptionalism” also known as “Europeans are obsessed with America and can’t understand why American’s don’t follow their orders, meanwhile the Danes count like Barbarians and the UK hasn’t picked a system”
I could give a shit about following orders, it’s a lot easier dealing with international business/trade/politics.
If everyone is on the same page, things are easier. I like the metric system. I’m a mechanic and my life is often hell because of the differences.
Ah yes, the two halves of the world, America and Europe.
On the english-speaking internet? Pretty much, plus the Aussies and Canadians.
You can make a “I hate you so much” “I don’t think about you at all” meme out of it if you want, but the fact is that American media, most notably Hollywood has an immense cultural impact in the western world. People are often confronted with the weird system that Americans use, but not the other way round, let alone come across something like the danish numbering system. It’s less obsession and more unpleasant regular occurances that lead to such strong opinions about the American system.
Well then make your own movies and shows then. Im not really seeing the problem.
We are, and plenty of em.
They just aren’t in English.
So if we look for English content, we encounter fantasy metrics where you guys measure in the feet of a long dead king, and the idiotic AM/PM system that goes from 11 AM to 12 PM and then to 1 PM.
Why are you so obsessed with what Americans use for measurements? They aren’t forcing or even asking you to use it
Ok, then why blame us? “Oh no. Someone put up a sign for burgers and when I went inside, they had burgers! Im going to blame them!”
Also, plenty of countries use both 12 hour and 24 hour time. Its not hard.
Thank you for sharing that! I’ll have a look into it.
It’s standard in Canada as well. I prefer 24hr personally. There were a couple times where I’ve napped in the evening, and woke up thinking I was late for work in the morning. Not fun. 24hr clock solves that. Plus it just makes more sense to me than 12hr clocks.
It’s definitely not standard in Canada. I wish it was. Every time I buy something, I have to figure out how to swap it to 24h mode.
Sorry, I meant 12hr is standard (agreeing with Nemo’s original comment).
It’s veeeeery not standard in Canada. I use it on my phone and most people who see it on the lockscreen treat me like I’m an alien, and it’s about a 50/50 mix of people who simply think 24 hour time is weird (but at least recognize it) vs. people who seem genuinely baffled by the digits they see appearing on my phone and don’t even seem to recognize it as a time at all.
I live in the US and I’ve never met someone who isn’t able to understand it. They might need to convert it in their heads to compare it with other times.
You’d think 24 hour watches would be more common than they are especially among European watches.
My kid had the hardest time reading a 12 hour clock. I think am/pm is too abstract for young kids. 24 hour makes more intuitive sense. The number resets only at the end of the day.
As far as I know the Japanese use it aswell. I learned 午後 and 午前 as vocab at least. (Am and pm)
We don’t use it in Canada, expect military or hospital records.
Quebec would like to have a word with you.
Then again they also have some opinions on that whole ‘Canada’ thing too.
There is a cultural phenomenon called schismogenesis - the tendency for one culture to define itself by how it differs from other cultures around it. Even in cases where the culture Y approach is “better” by whatever metric, culture X people will reject it because it’s a Y thing and not an X thing. I see the US rejection of the metric system under Reagan being the most glaringly obvious example of this, but the time thing is probably part of it, too.
I just really wish we hadn’t gone with the whole base 60 system in the first place.
I think I once read that when the metric system was first defined during the French Revolution, they also tried to use a decimal system for time, but that was quickly abandoned.
Why the hate for base 60? It has its roots in Babylon and also forms the basis for angles in geometry.
I am not a baseist. Some of my favorite algorithms are base-2.
Base 60 is so handy though. Very divisible.
I kind of wish we had gone all the way with base 60
Adding on to that most civilians are only exposed to 24 hr time in a field that was either organizationally based off of the military such as police or emergency medicine or in fields where it’s important to have precise time keeping like hospitals
We don’t use it in Canada, except military or hospital records.