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I hear phrases like "half-past", "quarter til", and "quarter after" way less often since digital clocks have became more commonplace. (midwest.social)
submitted 9 months ago by GiuseppeAndTheYeti@midwest.social to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[-] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 9 months ago

It's inefficient is what I'm suggesting.

[-] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 23 points 9 months ago

It is a one syllable difference, at most. Fif-teen versus Quar-ter-Past. Or Thir-ty versus Half-past. And for-ty-five versus quar-ter-till.

But it is also about precision. If I say "Let's meet up at 4:45" that implies a lot more specificity than "let's meet at quarter to five". The firmer is an exact time people should meet at and the latter is "around that time".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeopkvAP-ag goes into the difference between analog and digital time and what that means with thought processes. But a lot of it boils down to thinking in terms of "parts of a whole" versus "specific times".

[-] joel_feila@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

I'm curious why it got the name digital time.

[-] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 points 9 months ago

Because it is expressed as digits (numbers)

[-] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 9 months ago

it's not like people generally pronounce it fully anyways, it'll come out as "qua'tr" or "quartah" depending on dialect

[-] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 3 points 9 months ago

All of which is still two syllables?

[-] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 9 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/watch?v=NeopkvAP-ag

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[-] rockerface@lemm.ee 7 points 9 months ago

The most inefficient part of human brain is having to consciously process things. So going with whatever patterns you're used to is always going to be faster

this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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