Re: Time in various languages...


"Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1vkfa80lndzhv$.ag2yd6b0dak4$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 02:35:42 -0000, Neeraj Mathur
> <neemathur@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> <news:dqccdq$cct$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> in sci.lang:
>
>> "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:1nyg56iccd80l$.1kvafxls58u4q.dlg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>>> On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 13:32:00 +0000, Thomas Widmann
>>> <twid@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
>>> <news:m3fynr2awf.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in sci.lang:
>
>>>> Does it mean 9:30 in any variety of English?
>
>>> I don't believe so. Unfortunately. 'Halb zehn' = 9:30
>>> makes sense; the English usage is thoroughly unreasonable.
>
>> Not at all! When half of the ten o'clock hour has gone past, it is half
>> ten - 10.30.
>
> That makes no sense to me, because I don't consider 'the ten
> o'clock hour' a natural entity.

You're thinking of 10:00 as the end of the tenth hour, but this is highly
unnatural - the most natural entity is for all of the times that start with
10 to be grouped together. That's why TV programmes might start at 10 and
last until a few minutes before 10.30 or 11, but would never start a few
minutes after 9 or 9.30 and finish at 10. This is the way that human minds
instinctively work - that's why prices are always xx9.99, and that seems to
have proved rather well-attuned to producing bankable results for shops.
That's also why all of the big parties happened on 31 Dec 1999, even though
the new millenium wouldn't start for another year. 'The 10 o'clock hour'
might not have a simpler way of referring to it in English, in the way that
'the tenth hour' does, but it is the more natural, and more intuitive, unit.
That's why 'half 10' meaning 'halfway through all those times that start
with 10' is rather the opposite of 'thoroughly unreasonable'.

Neeraj Mathur


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