this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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[–] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

O'clock is pretty british. HH:MM is normal in the more civilised areas of Europe (aka the rest of Europe).

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 10 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (3 children)

Generally O'Clock is used with a 12 hour clock and AM/PM is implied by context, if you need specificity use millitary time (i.e 24 hr clock - 1600). As an Australian I find 16 O'Clock a bit jarring.

[–] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

I'm from Europe. I use a 24h-clock but not military time. Military time is an anglophone thing I don't care about since I'm not in the military. And frankly, I don't care much about how Australians or US-Americans or English people find my time and date formats or any other unit or measurement jarring, because you guys rarely agree on any kind of measurements, so I use metrics, a 24h-clock (maybe add an "o'clock" because it reads nicer to me) and dd.mm.yy(yy) instead of stones, pounds, feet or freedoms per square ketchup ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Whatever, you do you. We're 100% metric btw.

[–] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

We're 100% metric btw.

Canada, UK and USA aren't, at least not in colloquial language. That's what I mean. You post something in english and always meet someone from some anglophone country doing it differently. So I stopped caring.

[–] waz@feddit.uk 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

So what’s wrong with kg for weighing things, st & lb for people, miles for driving distance, metres for building things, C for temperature and feet for ascent of hills and stuff? That’s what a 70’s born UK kid thinks like. So 16:15 is said out loud, quarter past four, maybe rarely 1615, but never 16 o’clock and? No. O’clock is only on the hour. If it’s got bits on the end you say everything except the ‘o’clock’ But I love what you’ve done with ‘half-four’ to mean 3.30. I really enjoy doing that with my German colleagues.

[–] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 15 hours ago

So what’s wrong with kg for weighing things, st & lb for people, miles for driving distance, metres for building things, C for temperature and feet for ascent of hills and stuff?

What's right about it?

But I love what you’ve done with ‘half-four’ to mean 3.30. I really enjoy doing that with my German colleagues.

That's not exclusively german though as germanic languages in general and some slavic languages use this format.

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 9 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

First of, in Europe we use ISO 8601, which is quite different from the military time which the USA uses.

Second, in my home country we still say "16 on the clock" or "15:45 on the clock" (just translated to the native language, eg. "Klokken 16") to signify we're talking time and not weight or distance.

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 2 points 20 hours ago

You said

O’clock is pretty british

I was speaking to that (Australia is very similar).

[–] fonix232@fedia.io 5 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

military time is NOT 24 hour time! Stop mixing the two.

military time doesn't use minutes and hours but rather merges the two - 16:45 becomes 1645, and so on.

24 hour time still distincts minutes and hours.

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 5 points 19 hours ago

Valid, but hardly deserving of significant argument. Actually considered that in my original post but decided that it gets the point across. I now regret the whole thing, ppl take it way too seriously.

Peace, out.

[–] folekaule@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago

100% this. I was going to post what you said as well. But I will add that in the US, if you use 24 hour time, most people just refer to it as military time. If you tell them the difference they don't really care.

In the US 24h is virtually never used in a civil context, but in scientific, engineering, and medical contexts it is ubiquitous.

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 1 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

TV time and military time don't even use 24 hours. You can have a TV show that goes from 23:30 to 25:15 (25>24, in 24h it would be 01:15).

I imagine those who call 24h "military time" also say "I'll be home from work on Friday at 4100 AM", which makes about the same amount of sense.