What does "half six" mean?
the guy with the eye
six" or "at half seven etc .
Is "half six" just a shorter way of saying "half past six" or is it like in
German where it would mean "half past five"? Is "half six" Standard English
or should I avoid it?
Joona I Palaste
I'm not a native English speaker, but IMO you use "half six" like you
would use "halb sechs", "halv sex" or "puoli kuusi" in any continental
language. I.e. it is "half past _five_", not "half past _six_".
--
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- Mika P. Nieminen
Spehro Pefhany
I've never heard it here in Canada. I'd probably guess that it might mean
6:30, but I'd want to confirm that it didn't mean 5:30 or even 3:00.
Best regards,
--
Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
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Skitt
"Joona I Palaste" <pal...@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:9troem$m14$1...@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
> the guy with the eye <theguywi...@yahoo.com> scribbled the following:
> > Several times, I've heard English native speakers say things like "at
half
> > six" or "at half seven etc .
> > Is "half six" just a shorter way of saying "half past six" or is it like
in
> > German where it would mean "half past five"? Is "half six" Standard
English
> > or should I avoid it?
>
> I'm not a native English speaker, but IMO you use "half six" like you
> would use "halb sechs", "halv sex" or "puoli kuusi" in any continental
> language. I.e. it is "half past _five_", not "half past _six_".
While I agree with Joona about the other languages in continental Europe, I
would not use it in English, as I don't think it is a standard expression in
the latter. This has been discussed in AUE before.
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel of "Fawlty Towers" (he's from Barcelona).
Harvey V
> "Joona I Palaste" <pal...@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
> news:9troem$m14$1...@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
>> the guy with the eye <theguywi...@yahoo.com> scribbled the
>> following:
>>> Several times, I've heard English native speakers say things
>>> like "at half six" or "at half seven etc . Is "half six" just a
>>> shorter way of saying "half past six" or is it like in
>>> German where it would mean "half past five"? Is "half six"
>>> Standard English or should I avoid it?
>>
>> I'm not a native English speaker, but IMO you use "half six" like
>> you would use "halb sechs", "halv sex" or "puoli kuusi" in any
>> continental language. I.e. it is "half past _five_", not "half
>> past _six_".
>
> While I agree with Joona about the other languages in continental
> Europe, I would not use it in English, as I don't think it is a
> standard expression in the latter. This has been discussed in AUE
> before.
I haven't seen the previous discussions, but for what it's worth
whenever I've heard the expression, it's definitely meant "half past
six", and not "half past five".
I agree entirely with your point, though: it's neither a standard
nor geographically widespread expression, and should be avoided by
anyone who didn't grow up with it as part of their idiolect.
Harvey
Richard Fontana
"Half six" as an indication of some sort of clock time is not standard
international English. The only reason I am even aware of its existence
is that we've discussed it on AUE before. In particular, an expression
such as "half six" is entirely unknown among native speakers of English in
the United States of America, home to a substantial number of native
speakers of English. It may be standard *British* English, but I
can't say for certain, and I don't even know what "half six" means (I
assume it's either 5:30 or 6:30).
Some American speakers call 6:30 "half past six", but I believe this is a
slowly disappearing usage.
perchprism
"Leon I. Ramky" <leon.i...@GoFor21.com> wrote in message
news:3c047502...@news.mco.bellsouth.net...
> "the guy with the eye" <theguywi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >Several times, I've heard English native speakers say things like "at
half
> >six" or "at half seven etc .
>
> the interval from 15 minutes to 45 minutes after the hour (the bottom half
> of a clock face), or it could mean the final half of the hour. The Hunt
for
> Red October evades this issue by showing 5:40 on the clock face.
Hmm. I always took that expression for granted. Now that I think about it, I
guess it comes from baseball, where the bottom half of an inning is the
second half. The scoreboard shows the score for each inning with the
visitors(1), who bat first, above the home team.
(1) What do Brits call the visiting team?
--
Perchprism
(southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia)
Philip Eden
Richard Fontana <rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu> wrote in message > "Half six" as
an indication of some sort of clock time is not standard
> international English. The only reason I am even aware of its existence
> is that we've discussed it on AUE before. In particular, an expression
> such as "half six" is entirely unknown among native speakers of English in
> the United States of America, home to a substantial number of native
> speakers of English. It may be standard *British* English, but I
> can't say for certain, and I don't even know what "half six" means (I
> assume it's either 5:30 or 6:30).
>
> Some American speakers call 6:30 "half past six", but I believe this is a
> slowly disappearing usage.
>
but colloquial. Both mean 6.30.
Philip Eden
Fabian
"the guy with the eye" <theguywi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:9tro3q$j4m$1...@news.online.de...
In the UK, "half six" is universally acknowledged to mean 6:30. Whether am
or pm will depend on context.
In the US, the usage is apparently very rare.
--
--
Fabian
To find out what makes paranoiacs tic, follow them around and watch them
for a while.
BV
> Hmm. I always took that expression for granted. Now that I think about it, I
> guess it comes from baseball, where the bottom half of an inning is the
> second half. The scoreboard shows the score for each inning with the
> visitors(1), who bat first, above the home team.
>
> (1) What do Brits call the visiting team?
To agree with the other UK speakers - "half six" has the same meaning as "half
past six" and indicates 06:30 or 18:30. This is different from the German
practice, which we find bizarre. I don't think there is a French equivalent.
I don't recognise "bottom half of the hour", even from the US. So it is
presumably not common in the US and AFAIK not used in the UK, unless it is a
sports term with which I am not familiar.
Visitors, visiting team are perfectly acceptable terms for the non-home sports
team. Football (soccer) teams play "at home" or "away", which is a contraction
of "away from home". Away goals are prized because a team usually does better
in front of the home crowd. And in a two-game series, played at either team's
home ground, away goals outrank home goals in the case of a draw after both
games.
BTW, in UK the singular of innings is "innings". So in cricket, one team can
win by "an innings". I have *never* heard "an inning" in the UK.
--
BV
The address is valid, but I may change it at any time to keep ahead of the
spammers.
Tony Cooper
>
> (1) What do Brits call the visiting team?
In soccer: casualties.
--
Tony Cooper aka: tony_co...@yahoo.com
Provider of Jots and Tittles
Skitt
"BV" <bass....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:3C0180F5...@ntlworld.com...
> To agree with the other UK speakers - "half six" has the same meaning as
"half
> past six" and indicates 06:30 or 18:30. This is different from the German
> practice, which we find bizarre. I don't think there is a French
equivalent.
It is not only in German that the "half six" form denotes 5:30, but it is
true in several other European languages, as was noted before. It makes
much more sense than the meaning of 6:30, as being half of something cannot
possibly be more than the something. What it means in German and several
other European languages is that the time is halfway between the previous
hour and six o'clock -- namely 5:30. That figures, whereas it meaning 6:30
makes no sense at all.
Tony Cooper
>
> "Half six" as an indication of some sort of clock time is not standard
> international English. The only reason I am even aware of its existence
> is that we've discussed it on AUE before. In particular, an expression
> such as "half six" is entirely unknown among native speakers of English in
> the United States of America,
Where do you come up with these generalities? Anyone that's
seen a J. Arthur Rank production, watched a British
television show, or read a novel set in the UK has probably
seen this expression. Then, there are a few of us that have
actually traveled to the UK and been told the train leaves
at half six. It is far from an instantly recognizable
phrase in the US, but not an entirely unknown phrase.
> Some American speakers call 6:30 "half past six", but I believe this is a
> slowly disappearing usage.
The digital watch and the digital clock have eroded the
usage of any expression of time that is not
up-to-the-minute. My watch has only hands, so I still say
"half past", "quarter past" or "ten to". It's "past" if
it's before the half hour, and "to" if it's after the half
hour. It's six forty-X if I'm looking at a digital clock.
Tony Cooper
Fabian wrote:
>
> In the UK, "half six" is universally acknowledged to mean 6:30. Whether am
> or pm will depend on context.
>
> In the US, the usage is apparently very rare.
As is fortnight, Wednesday week, and Saturday instant. Not
unknown in meaning, but rarely used.
Paul
perchprism wrote in message
>(1) What do Brits call the visiting team?
The "away" team or the "visitors".
P
Pat Durkin
"Joona I Palaste" <pal...@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:9troem$m14$1...@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
> > Several times, I've heard English native speakers say things like "at
half
> > six" or "at half seven etc .
> > Is "half six" just a shorter way of saying "half past six" or is it like
in
> > German where it would mean "half past five"? Is "half six" Standard
English
> > or should I avoid it?
>
> I'm not a native English speaker, but IMO you use "half six" like you
> would use "halb sechs", "halv sex" or "puoli kuusi" in any continental
> language. I.e. it is "half past _five_", not "half past _six_".
I don't know about other areas of the country, but in Wisconsin, we
frequently say " a quarter of" six. I cannot recall the last time I heard
"half of 6" (for 5:30), but I am sure I have heard it. This is to contrast
with "a quarter past" and "half past". It could be the "half of 6" was
dropped early because it can so easily be replaced by "half past 5". It may
be these are simply relics of the strong Germanic settlements in the state.
Donna Richoux
> I'm curious about what "the bottom half of the hour" means. It could mean
> the interval from 15 minutes to 45 minutes after the hour (the bottom half
> of a clock face), or it could mean the final half of the hour. The Hunt for
> Red October evades this issue by showing 5:40 on the clock face.
I'm not really familiar with "bottom half of the hour." Now, "at the
bottom of the hour," yes. For example, look at this CNN Radio schedule:
2:00 AM Top of the Hour Newscast
2:30 AM Bottom of the Hour Newscast
3:00 AM Top of the Hour Newscast
3:30 AM Bottom of the Hour Newscast
Clearly, the reason is the position of the minute hand on a traditional
clockface.
--
Best --- Donna Richoux
Rob Bannister
This is amazing! I have always assumed that 'half six' was an exclusively
American usage. Looks as though I'll have to do a Google search to find the
earlier discussion.
-- Rob Bannister
Spehro Pefhany
> Some American speakers call 6:30 "half past six", but I believe this is a
> slowly disappearing usage.
What leads you to believe that it's slowly disappearing? Digital clocks,
as another poster indicates?
When someone asks the time, and I happen to have a digital watch on, I see
6:41:20 on the watch and say "just half past six".
Richard Fontana
> The renowned Richard Fontana <rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>
> > Some American speakers call 6:30 "half past six", but I believe this is a
> > slowly disappearing usage.
>
> What leads you to believe that it's slowly disappearing? Digital clocks,
> as another poster indicates?
No, I believe it's something that predates the popularization of digital
clocks and watches, which at any rate never enjoyed the success that was
predicted for them. "Half past six", my linguistic intuition tells me, is
a usage more likely to be used by people of an Older Generation. Similar
'older' disappearing usages include "quarter of" and "quarter
till" ("quarter to" is still quite popular).
> When someone asks the time, and I happen to have a digital watch on, I see
> 6:41:20 on the watch and say "just half past six".
Hmm. There I'd say "twenty to seven" or "about six forty".
Richard Fontana
>
> Fabian wrote:
> >
> > In the UK, "half six" is universally acknowledged to mean 6:30. Whether am
> > or pm will depend on context.
> >
> > In the US, the usage is apparently very rare.
>
> As is fortnight, Wednesday week, and Saturday instant. Not
> unknown in meaning, but rarely used.
Apparently there are small microdialectal pockets where "Wednesday
week" is used -- didn't someone here report same being used in Texas?
Is "Saturday instant" really used?
Richard Fontana
> Richard Fontana wrote:
> >
> > "Half six" as an indication of some sort of clock time is not standard
> > international English. The only reason I am even aware of its existence
> > is that we've discussed it on AUE before. In particular, an expression
> > such as "half six" is entirely unknown among native speakers of English in
> > the United States of America,
>
> Where do you come up with these generalities? Anyone that's
> seen a J. Arthur Rank production, watched a British
> television show, or read a novel set in the UK has probably
> seen this expression. Then, there are a few of us that have
> actually traveled to the UK and been told the train leaves
> at half six. It is far from an instantly recognizable
> phrase in the US, but not an entirely unknown phrase.
I can tell you that I've watched a lot of British TV shows, seen a
goodly number of British films, listened to the BBC World Service a fair
amount, read many books (including novels) by UK authors, and I never
consciously encountered the expression "half six". I've also travelled in
the UK and I don't recall ever having encountered the expression "half
six". If it's really that common in the UK then it's possible I
encountered it without noticing it -- maybe my brain inserted a "past".
The point is, is that if I've had some minimal exposure to UK culture and
never consciously encountered "half six", there must be hundreds of
millions of Americans who similarly have never consciously encountered (or
unconsciously encountered) "half six".
> > Some American speakers call 6:30 "half past six", but I believe this is a
> > slowly disappearing usage.
>
> The digital watch and the digital clock have eroded the
> usage of any expression of time that is not
> up-to-the-minute. My watch has only hands, so I still say
> "half past", "quarter past" or "ten to". It's "past" if
> it's before the half hour, and "to" if it's after the half
> hour. It's six forty-X if I'm looking at a digital clock.
I've never used digital watches much, and I don't think I've owned a
digital watch in about twenty years, but I've never naturally said "half
past six", always preferring "six thirty". I also never say "quarter
past", "quarter of", or "quarter till". I do say "quarter to" and
"quarter after".
Richard Fontana
> perchprism wrote:
>
> > Hmm. I always took that expression for granted. Now that I think about it, I
> > guess it comes from baseball, where the bottom half of an inning is the
> > second half. The scoreboard shows the score for each inning with the
> > visitors(1), who bat first, above the home team.
> >
> > (1) What do Brits call the visiting team?
>
> To agree with the other UK speakers - "half six" has the same meaning as "half
> past six" and indicates 06:30 or 18:30. This is different from the German
> practice, which we find bizarre. I don't think there is a French equivalent.
>
> I don't recognise "bottom half of the hour", even from the US. So it is
> presumably not common in the US and AFAIK not used in the UK, unless it is a
> sports term with which I am not familiar.
I (American) only know "top of the hour" and "bottom of the hour" as terms
used by broadcast newspeople, referring to the n:00 and n:30 clock times
respectively.
Frances Kemmish
> Is "Saturday instant" really used?
I don't quite see how it would be used; "inst." was used to mean "this
month", so you could use it with a date: say "30th inst." but a day of
the week wouldn't make sense.
Fran
Spehro Pefhany
> No, I believe it's something that predates the popularization of digital
> clocks and watches, which at any rate never enjoyed the success that was
> predicted for them. "Half past six", my linguistic intuition tells me, is
> a usage more likely to be used by people of an Older Generation. Similar
> 'older' disappearing usages include "quarter of" and "quarter
> till" ("quarter to" is still quite popular).
You could be right, I'll be on the watch for this.
>> When someone asks the time, and I happen to have a digital watch on, I see
>> 6:41:20 on the watch and say "just half past six".
> Hmm. There I'd say "twenty to seven" or "about six forty".
Of course I neglected to mention that I keep my watch about 10 minutes
fast. If it was the evening, I'd see 18:41:20 and say the same
thing, so in that case there's a triple translation going on- from Zulu
10-minutes-fast digital format to 12-hour real-world analog format. It's
easier when I'm wearing the analog/digital display Breitling.
Spehro Pefhany
> Zulu
(following up on himself..)
Of course it isn't truly Zulu time unless I happen to be in the UK at the
time, I'm referring to 24-hour format. Before everyone gleefully jumps on
this, hopefully.
Don Aitken
wrote:
>perchprism wrote:
>
>> Hmm. I always took that expression for granted. Now that I think about it, I
>> guess it comes from baseball, where the bottom half of an inning is the
>> second half. The scoreboard shows the score for each inning with the
>> visitors(1), who bat first, above the home team.
>>
>> (1) What do Brits call the visiting team?
>
>Visitors, visiting team are perfectly acceptable terms for the non-home sports
>team. Football (soccer) teams play "at home" or "away", which is a contraction
>of "away from home". Away goals are prized because a team usually does better
>in front of the home crowd. And in a two-game series, played at either team's
>home ground, away goals outrank home goals in the case of a draw after both
>games.
>
>BTW, in UK the singular of innings is "innings". So in cricket, one team can
>win by "an innings". I have *never* heard "an inning" in the UK.
>
Playing away is a term used in other sports too, besides having a
metaphorical application to adultery. Another difference is that in
the US the visiting team's score is always given first, while in the
UK it is the other way round. The expression "on the road" for the
visiting team is not used here.
--
Don Aitken
R H Draney
wrote:
>I don't know about other areas of the country, but in Wisconsin, we
>frequently say " a quarter of" six. I cannot recall the last time I heard
>"half of 6" (for 5:30), but I am sure I have heard it. This is to contrast
>with "a quarter past" and "half past". It could be the "half of 6" was
>dropped early because it can so easily be replaced by "half past 5". It may
>be these are simply relics of the strong Germanic settlements in the state.
I remember being puzzled in childhood by "five of nine"...since none
of the adults (Red River valley and Texas panhandle, mostly) seemed
inclined to explain the usage at the time, it took a fair amount of
research to discover that "of" meant "until", just the opposite of
what logic would suggest....
At some point, this discussion is going to find its way to whether
"this weekend" and "next weekend" can ever mean the same thing, so let
me just mention that the system I program for at work automatically
recognizes a wide variety of forms; asked (today) for a date, it will
give identical results whether the user says "30 nov", "+4d",
"11-30-01", or "coming thur"....r
--
"But time is not like tomatoes;
it's more like bulk flour" - sam
Pat Durkin
"R H Draney" <dado...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3c01b224....@news.earthlink.net...
Now, there is another expression, I believe spoken more in BrE, but also
used in some AmE speech:
(I don't use this, so may get it wrong): last but 1, next but 1 etc. Not
a time thing, but maybe a calendar dating thing. Last week but 1?
Paul
Richard Fontana wrote in message ...
>I can tell you that I've watched a lot of British TV shows, seen a
>goodly number of British films, listened to the BBC World Service a fair
>amount, read many books (including novels) by UK authors, and I never
>consciously encountered the expression "half six". I've also travelled in
>the UK and I don't recall ever having encountered the expression "half
>six". If it's really that common in the UK then it's possible I
>encountered it without noticing it -- maybe my brain inserted a "past".
You'll have to listen harder then! It's certainly used - especially by those
of us who had our childhood in the 70's.
I'm very interested by this further perceived phenomenon of "half past-"
seemingly dying out. Is there any evidence for this? If so, then I must
accept that, at the tender age of 39, I am now an old man!
P
R H Draney
wrote:
>Now, there is another expression, I believe spoken more in BrE, but also
>used in some AmE speech:
>(I don't use this, so may get it wrong): last but 1, next but 1 etc. Not
>a time thing, but maybe a calendar dating thing. Last week but 1?
Don't know it (US) from a strictly calendrical context, but I see it a
lot in reference to quantities of text: "last paragraph but one" and
the like....
In fact, I remember being amused for some time by the definition of a
"preantepenultimate syllable" (which turned up in a limerick) as "last
but three"....r
Richard Fontana
> I'm very interested by this further perceived phenomenon of "half past-"
> seemingly dying out. Is there any evidence for this? If so, then I must
> accept that, at the tender age of 39, I am now an old man!
I have no concrete evidence. It's just that everyone I can think of who
says "half past" is significantly older than me (and you too). It's
possible that it's dying out in some regional or dialectal groups (such
as, perhaps, the Prestige Linguistic Communities of the Northeast Coastal
Population Centers of the US) and not in others.
If I had to put a number on it, I'd say I'd be surprised to hear any
American under 50-55 say "half past", but perhaps this view is without
justification.
Pat Durkin
That's great. I was trying to figure out the "pre-" penultimate prefix, the
other day, and had to work around it. Now, why not post the limerick??
R H Draney
wrote:
>"R H Draney" <dado...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>news:3c01bab0....@news.earthlink.net...
>>
>> In fact, I remember being amused for some time by the definition of a
>> "preantepenultimate syllable" (which turned up in a limerick) as "last
>> but three"....r
>
>That's great. I was trying to figure out the "pre-" penultimate prefix, the
>other day, and had to work around it. Now, why not post the limerick??
One simple reason: I didn't memorize it and can't remember where it
was...probably one of Espy's books of word games...Google gives me 234
hits on the word alone, most of which seem to think it's a useful
nonsense word for describing oral sex....
I do seem to recall that "preantepenultimate" was the penultimate word
in the ultimate line of the limerick, with a monosyllable following
it...don't know if that's any help or not...you could also construct a
haiku with it alone as the middle line, and it wouldn't surprise me to
find that some of the regulars here are already working on that....r
Tony Cooper
>
> No, I believe it's something that predates the popularization of digital
> clocks and watches, which at any rate never enjoyed the success that was
> predicted for them.
I don't know what was predicted for digital watches, but
almost all sports watch are either digital or analog and
digital. Those great, lumpy black sports watches seem to be
on everyone. To time laps that are never run and for
stopwatch determination of exercises not done.
Tony Cooper
>
> I can tell you that I've watched a lot of British TV shows, seen a
> goodly number of British films, listened to the BBC World Service a fair
> amount, read many books (including novels) by UK authors, and I never
> consciously encountered the expression "half six". I've also travelled in
> the UK and I don't recall ever having encountered the expression "half
> six". If it's really that common in the UK then it's possible I
> encountered it without noticing it -- maybe my brain inserted a "past".
>
> The point is, is that if I've had some minimal exposure to UK culture and
> never consciously encountered "half six", there must be hundreds of
> millions of Americans who similarly have never consciously encountered (or
> unconsciously encountered) "half six".
What time is the sun over the yardarm for you? Maybe
half-six is a bad example.
Tony Cooper
I've seen it only in books. Usually, in a solicitor's
letter saying the event will be "Saturday instant" meaning
this Saturday, or the 15th instant meaning this month. With
the day of the week used, and the meaning being the Saturday
within the next six days, it makes as much sense as the
date.
Richard Fontana
> Richard Fontana wrote:
> >
> > No, I believe it's something that predates the popularization of digital
> > clocks and watches, which at any rate never enjoyed the success that was
> > predicted for them.
>
> I don't know what was predicted for digital watches,
Well, they certainly didn't replace analog watches, nor did digital
clocks replace analog clocks. They peacefully coexist today, and they
really have for the past couple of decades or more.
> but
> almost all sports watch are either digital or analog and
> digital. Those great, lumpy black sports watches seem to be
> on everyone. To time laps that are never run and for
> stopwatch determination of exercises not done.
If anything, I have the sense that digital watches are not as popular
today as they were back in the day when they still had novelty value. I
think there are a lot of people out there like me who went through a
digital watch stage (usually in early adolescence) but who then matured
and went back to more traditional devices.
Tony Cooper
>
> If anything, I have the sense that digital watches are not as popular
> today as they were back in the day when they still had novelty value. I
> think there are a lot of people out there like me who went through a
> digital watch stage (usually in early adolescence) but who then matured
> and went back to more traditional devices.
Richard, I mean this in the kindest possible way, but you do
tend to extrapolate from your own habits and from viewing in
a range of maybe 30 feet from your own body. I'm guessing
that you work in an office where people wear suits and worry
about capping their pens before they put them back in their
pocket.
A watch with hands is a dress watch for most people unless
it's a combination analog and digital. I have a cheap Timex
(with hands only) that I wear knocking about the yard or
working in my warehouse. I have a Rolex (with hands only)
that I wear in dressier circumstances. I have a digital
that measures my heartbeat when I exercise. I have a
digital dive watch.
What do the common folk do? Wear sports watches. Most, but
not all, sports watches are digital. Look in the display
cases of any store that carries watches - especially the
under $100 watches - and they are mostly digital. Not those
old digitals with the huge ruby numbers in a rectangular
opening, but the ones made by Pulsar and Seiko that are
roughly the size of truck tires. They have one or more time
zones, stopwatch function, several lap counters, alarms,
elapsed time indicators, and even memory banks for phone
numbers. I've had a couple, but have never mastered setting
all the functions.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>> Some American speakers call 6:30 "half past six", but I believe this is a
>> slowly disappearing usage.
>>
>Half past six is standard BritEng usage, and half six is common
>but colloquial. Both mean 6.30.
Half past six is standard here.
Some recent immigrants have brought the "half six" usage, but it hasn't caught
on, because most English-speaking South Africans would think of it as half
past five, which is the Afrikaans usage that they learnt at school.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>No, I believe it's something that predates the popularization of digital
>clocks and watches, which at any rate never enjoyed the success that was
>predicted for them. "Half past six", my linguistic intuition tells me, is
>a usage more likely to be used by people of an Older Generation. Similar
>'older' disappearing usages include "quarter of" and "quarter
>till" ("quarter to" is still quite popular).
>
>> When someone asks the time, and I happen to have a digital watch on, I see
>> 6:41:20 on the watch and say "just half past six".
>
>Hmm. There I'd say "twenty to seven" or "about six forty".
Then the younger generation will no longer appreciale James Thurber's pun:
"What type is it?"
"Half past hate, or a quarter to fight."
My father-in-law, who rarely wore a wrist watch, when asked the time would say
"A hair past a freckle."
Richard Fontana
> Frances Kemmish wrote:
> >
> > Richard Fontana wrote:
> >
> > > Is "Saturday instant" really used?
> >
> > I don't quite see how it would be used; "inst." was used to mean "this
> > month", so you could use it with a date: say "30th inst." but a day of
> > the week wouldn't make sense.
>
> I've seen it only in books. Usually, in a solicitor's
> letter saying the event will be "Saturday instant" meaning
> this Saturday, or the 15th instant meaning this month. With
> the day of the week used, and the meaning being the Saturday
> within the next six days, it makes as much sense as the
> date.
Doing a search on Google, I found no UK usages, but quite a few 19th
century American usages, particularly from the South:
8th - On Motion it was agreed that John Meglemre be advised to visit
Brethren Murphey, Martin, Cunningham & Masten at Brier Creek Meeting House
on the 5th Saturday Instant. And that Brethren Angel, Brettin, and Wright
do attend at the time and place above said to hear the charges exhibited
and the acknowledgements made & to judge of the matter and report to the
next Association and that said Brethren & Melgemre attend Br. Murphy on
the 2nd Saturday in Jan. on the same Petition.
[Wilkes County, North Carolina, 1810]
It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that the 49th Ohio has lost one
of its dearest comrades. Ron 'Luke' Brandenburg passed away this Saturday
instant.
[This appears to be from a website for Civil War re-enactors, so it's
possible that the writer was consciously using a perceived-archaic
American usage]
Proceedings of the town of Cabot. At the request of four of the
inhabitants of the town of Cabot, I hereby notify the freemen and
inhabitants of the town to meet at the house of Mr. Thomas LYFORD, in said
Cabot, on the last Saturday instant March, ten o'clock before noon, then
and there being met to choose 1st a moderator, clerk, and necessary town
officers; 2d ,to see if they will raise money to defray the incidental
charges, and do any other business that may be necessary.
[1788, Cabot, Vermont]
The Friday before the 3rd Sunday Instant Bro Farrill was appointed to
write our Letter to the next Association and insert therein our wish for
their next appointment to be at our Meeting House.
[Skewarky Church minutes, Martin County, North Carolina, 1801?]
John BLACK & Orpha his wife came into court a& acknowledged themselves
justly indebted to the State of TN in sum of $500 to be levied of their
goods & chattels, lands & tennements to the sue of the State, to be void
on condideration that the said Orpha BLACK shall appear at next term of
Cir. Ct. holden for Cty. of MU in Columbia on the 1st Thursday after the
3rd Monday (instant) & give evidence in behalf of this State against
William MCGILL on a charge of murder & not depart without leave of the
court. GI Cty., TN Cir. Ct., p 395.
[1816]
The Sequachee News says; "Mrs. Rogers, of Dayton, nee Miss Mary Loyd, of
Pikeville, had the misfortune of getting her leg broken Tuesday
(instant) by being thrown from a buggy.
[Dayton, Tennessee News Gazette, 1888]
Funeral services at the house, 119 Druid Hill avenue, on Wednesday
instant at 2 PM.
[Baltimore, 1888]
We) continued to retreat south, resting at intervals until May
25,Wednesday, instant, when the Command was ordered into the line of
battle near New Hope Church.
[Personal account of a Confederate soldier during the Civil War]
Also one modern usage from Singapore:
In the Singapore Straits Times of Tuesday instant (7/8/20010), the PAP
Government announced the issue of awarding merit points for dubious
achievements in National Service.
Richard Fontana
> Richard Fontana wrote:
> >
> > If anything, I have the sense that digital watches are not as popular
> > today as they were back in the day when they still had novelty value. I
> > think there are a lot of people out there like me who went through a
> > digital watch stage (usually in early adolescence) but who then matured
> > and went back to more traditional devices.
>
> Richard, I mean this in the kindest possible way, but you do
> tend to extrapolate from your own habits and from viewing in
> a range of maybe 30 feet from your own body. I'm guessing
> that you work in an office where people wear suits and worry
> about capping their pens before they put them back in their
> pocket.
Not true, but I used to work in such a place; as for capping pens, I don't
see how there can be disagreement on the need to cap them before they're
placed in one's pocket. What I never really worried about was not putting
the capped pen upside-down in the pocket.
> A watch with hands is a dress watch for most people unless
> it's a combination analog and digital. I have a cheap Timex
> (with hands only) that I wear knocking about the yard or
> working in my warehouse. I have a Rolex (with hands only)
> that I wear in dressier circumstances. I have a digital
> that measures my heartbeat when I exercise. I have a
> digital dive watch.
Well, so see you have different watches for different purposes.
> What do the common folk do? Wear sports watches. Most, but
> not all, sports watches are digital. Look in the display
> cases of any store that carries watches - especially the
> under $100 watches - and they are mostly digital. Not those
> old digitals with the huge ruby numbers in a rectangular
> opening, but the ones made by Pulsar and Seiko that are
> roughly the size of truck tires. They have one or more time
> zones, stopwatch function, several lap counters, alarms,
> elapsed time indicators, and even memory banks for phone
> numbers. I've had a couple, but have never mastered setting
> all the functions.
I have seen such things, but I am not convinced that they are as popular
(in comparison to watches with hands) as you suggest. I don't think this
has much to do with cost. There are some rey expensive digital watches out
there, and a lot of cheap analog ones.
Maria Conlon
Richard Fontana wrote in message ...
>I have no concrete evidence. It's just that everyone I can think
of who
>says "half past" is significantly older than me (and you too).
It's
>possible that it's dying out in some regional or dialectal groups
(such
>as, perhaps, the Prestige Linguistic Communities of the Northeast
>Coastal Population Centers of the US) and not in others.
>
>If I had to put a number on it, I'd say I'd be surprised to hear
any
>American under 50-55 say "half past", but perhaps this view is
>without justification.
As you may know, I am more than 55. I am very familiar with "half
past," "quarter of," and so on. However, I rarely use them -- very
rarely -- and the same goes for my parents. One of my grandmothers
did, and a long-time friend and her family did. Of those "dids," all
were of German or "Pennsylvania Dutch" ancestry. (That may mean
something -- or nothing.)
Also, having read many books (mostly fiction) by British authors, I
am familiar with "half six [seven/eight]" et cetera. I don't use the
term at all. (This relates to your earlier statement that, "In
particular, an expression such as "half six" is entirely unknown
among native speakers of English in the United States of America.")
Is my experience or knowledge unusual in the US? I don't think so. I
will agree with you, though, that the usage of "half past, quarter
of" and so on, is dying out, and all but dead. IMO, this would be
partially because of digital clocks and watches, but also because
people who are familiar with the terms seldom, if ever, use them.
(At this point, I should look up what I said before on this topic. I
won't, though. If anyone remembers, and if it contradicts what I'm
saying now, well, just figure I've had additional time to think
about it since then.)
Maria (Tootsie)
Joona I Palaste
>>I don't know about other areas of the country, but in Wisconsin, we
>>frequently say " a quarter of" six. I cannot recall the last time I heard
>>"half of 6" (for 5:30), but I am sure I have heard it. This is to contrast
>>with "a quarter past" and "half past". It could be the "half of 6" was
>>dropped early because it can so easily be replaced by "half past 5". It may
>>be these are simply relics of the strong Germanic settlements in the state.
> I remember being puzzled in childhood by "five of nine"...since none
> of the adults (Red River valley and Texas panhandle, mostly) seemed
> inclined to explain the usage at the time, it took a fair amount of
> research to discover that "of" meant "until", just the opposite of
> what logic would suggest....
So THAT's where the Star Trek character 7 of 9 got here name. =)
--
/-- Joona Palaste (pal...@cc.helsinki.fi) ---------------------------\
| Kingpriest of "The Flying Lemon Tree" G++ FR FW+ M- #108 D+ ADA N+++|
| http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste W++ B OP+ |
\----------------------------------------- Finland rules! ------------/
"Nothing lasts forever - so why not destroy it now?"
- Quake
Maria Conlon
Spehro Pefhany wrote in message ...
>Spehro Pefhany wrote:
>> Zulu
>
>(following up on himself..)
Is this following up on yourself going to become a habit, Spehro?
Maybe we should all do this. There's something about hitting "Send"
that causes a spurt of second thoughts and the sudden realization
that something was left out.
Maria (Tootsie)
Fabian
"Skitt" <sk...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:9ts0bm$49d7n$1...@ID-61580.news.dfncis.de...
>
> "BV" <bass....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:3C0180F5...@ntlworld.com...
>
> > To agree with the other UK speakers - "half six" has the same meaning
as
> "half
> > past six" and indicates 06:30 or 18:30. This is different from the
German
> > practice, which we find bizarre. I don't think there is a French
> equivalent.
>
is
> true in several other European languages, as was noted before. It makes
> much more sense than the meaning of 6:30, as being half of something
cannot
> possibly be more than the something. What it means in German and
several
> other European languages is that the time is halfway between the
previous
> hour and six o'clock -- namely 5:30. That figures, whereas it meaning
6:30
> makes no sense at all.
Why is it so illogical that "half six" should mean 6:30? One could just as
easily argue that "twenty one" should mean 19, by subtracting one from
twenty. Here in England, we think of it as adding the two numbers
together. half plus six is six and a half.
Maltese say "one thirty" (well, wiehed u tletin) when they mean 31. Are
you going to insist that they mean 29?
--
--
Fabian
To find out what makes paranoiacs tic, follow them around and watch them
for a while.
HarryD
make sense in the meaning of "away from". But I am no native speaker or
speller.
HarryD
"Pat Durkin" <durk...@nothome.com> wrote in message
news:QKfM7.179355$My2.10...@news1.mntp1.il.home.com...
>
> "Joona I Palaste" <pal...@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
> news:9troem$m14$1...@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
> > the guy with the eye <theguywi...@yahoo.com> scribbled the
following:
> > > Several times, I've heard English native speakers say things like "at
> half
> > > six" or "at half seven etc .
> > > Is "half six" just a shorter way of saying "half past six" or is it
like
> in
> > > German where it would mean "half past five"? Is "half six" Standard
> English
> > > or should I avoid it?
> >
> > I'm not a native English speaker, but IMO you use "half six" like you
> > would use "halb sechs", "halv sex" or "puoli kuusi" in any continental
> > language. I.e. it is "half past _five_", not "half past _six_".
David
> > In fact, I remember being amused for some time by the definition of a
> > "preantepenultimate syllable" (which turned up in a limerick) as "last
> > but three"....r
>
> That's great. I was trying to figure out the "pre-" penultimate prefix, the
> other day, and had to work around it. Now, why not post the limerick??
Ante-penultimate was used, if not coined, in the 1950s by Flanders and Swann in
their ditty "Have some Madeira, M'Dear"
Then it flashed through her mind what her mother has said, with her
antepenultimate breath;
'Oh, my child, if you look on the wine that is red then prepare for a fate
worse than death!'
It was certainly astonishing when first heard, so I guess they must have made it
up.
--
David
The address is valid, but I will change it at to keep ahead of the spammers.
David
> Would that be "quarter of" or "quarter off"? I'm not sure. "Off" seems to
> make sense in the meaning of "away from". But I am no native speaker or
> speller.
Definitely Quarter Of. I am familiar with this construct but it still sounds
odd to me, so it's either not British or not regional to me, or has fallen out
of general use.
David Tomkins
news:9troem$m14$1...@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
> the guy with the eye <theguywi...@yahoo.com> scribbled the following:
> > Several times, I've heard English native speakers say things like "at
half
> > six" or "at half seven etc .
> > Is "half six" just a shorter way of saying "half past six" or is it like
in
> > German where it would mean "half past five"? Is "half six" Standard
English
> > or should I avoid it?
>
> I'm not a native English speaker, but IMO you use "half six" like you
> would use "halb sechs", "halv sex" or "puoli kuusi" in any continental
> language. I.e. it is "half past _five_", not "half past _six_".
I am a native speaker and "half six" IS NOT equivalent to "halb sechs".
"Half six" = 6.30. [Of course halb sechs in German = 5.30, as was a big
urprise to me when learning German for the first time!] The expression half
six [etc.]" is used mainly in the UK. But one can also hear it being sed in
Australia. The main people to use this phrase in Australia are mmigrants
from the UK (mainly England). However, more than a few locals (myself
ncluded) have been known to utter it on occasion.
DT
PBusw13724
>I haven't seen the previous discussions, but for what it's worth
>whenever I've heard the expression, it's definitely meant "half past
>six", and not "half past five".
>
>I agree entirely with your point, though: it's neither a standard
>nor geographically widespread expression, and should be avoided by
>anyone who didn't grow up with it as part of their idiolect.
>
I note Harvey's comments. His interpretation of 6.30 is spot on in English.
However, I do find the expression far from uncommon in south-east England, and
it is certainly a part of my idiolect.
PB
Harvey V
wrote:
It's actually part of mine, as well; I live in Hampshire, and it would
sound perfectly normal in the pub here. I do think, though, that it's
sufficiently restricted to the UK that -- to be on the safe side --
it's probably best avoided by non-native speakers.
Cheers,
Harvey
Philip Eden
Tony Cooper <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3C01DC3C...@yahoo.com...
> A watch with hands is a dress watch for most people unless
> it's a combination analog and digital. I have a cheap Timex
> (with hands only) that I wear knocking about the yard or
> working in my warehouse. I have a Rolex (with hands only)
> that I wear in dressier circumstances. I have a digital
> that measures my heartbeat when I exercise. I have a
> digital dive watch.
>
> What do the common folk do?
> Tony Cooper aka: tony_co...@yahoo.com
I ceased wearing a watch when I stopped working myself
into the ground. I thought I would have withdrawal symptoms
but after a few days I didn't miss it at all. There are two or
three clocks around the house. Meetings, visits, and so on,
are now arranged at approximate times and people know not
to expect me on the dot. I can heartily recommend casting
aside this tool of temporal tyranny.
Philip Eden
Frances Kemmish
>
> Frances Kemmish wrote:
> >
> > Richard Fontana wrote:
> >
> > > Is "Saturday instant" really used?
> >
> > I don't quite see how it would be used; "inst." was used to mean "this
> > month", so you could use it with a date: say "30th inst." but a day of
> > the week wouldn't make sense.
>
> I've seen it only in books. Usually, in a solicitor's
> letter saying the event will be "Saturday instant" meaning
> this Saturday, or the 15th instant meaning this month. With
> the day of the week used, and the meaning being the Saturday
> within the next six days, it makes as much sense as the
> date.
>
I remember learning the words "instant" and "ultimo" when I was at
school, but I've never felt the need to use them in my own
correspondence; "inst." was meant "this month", and "ult." meant "last
month". Apparently it was used with a broader meaning, at least in the
examples Richard quotes.
It's a long time since I've seen it used in a business letter.
Fran
dcw
Frances Kemmish <fkem...@optonline.net> wrote:
>I remember learning the words "instant" and "ultimo" when I was at
>school, but I've never felt the need to use them in my own
>correspondence; "inst." was meant "this month", and "ult." meant "last
>month". Apparently it was used with a broader meaning, at least in the
>examples Richard quotes.
Also "prox." for "next month", but I've never encountered any of them in
real life.
David
R H Draney
wrote:
>R H Draney <dado...@earthlink.net> scribbled the following:
>
>> I remember being puzzled in childhood by "five of nine"...since none
>> of the adults (Red River valley and Texas panhandle, mostly) seemed
>> inclined to explain the usage at the time, it took a fair amount of
>> research to discover that "of" meant "until", just the opposite of
>> what logic would suggest....
>
>So THAT's where the Star Trek character 7 of 9 got here name. =)
I thought someone might make that reference, but couldn't figure out
how to work:
http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/98/Feb/bigborg.html
into the conversation....
--
For more Trek humor, see:
http://home.earthlink.net/~dadoctah/badtrekday.htm
Pat Durkin
"David" <bass....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:3C0213BD...@ntlworld.com...
>
>
> Ante-penultimate was used, if not coined, in the 1950s by Flanders and
Swann in
> their ditty "Have some Madeira, M'Dear"
>
> Then it flashed through her mind what her mother has said, with her
> antepenultimate breath;
> 'Oh, my child, if you look on the wine that is red then prepare for a
fate
> worse than death!'
>
> It was certainly astonishing when first heard, so I guess they must have
made it
> up.
I remember them with sadness that time must go by. Mud, Mud... etc.
R J Valentine
I gave away my last real watch to someone who could put it to better use.
It turned out after that that I was missing buses more for a while, so I
picked up a digital watch at the dollar store (and threw away the
too-short band and carried it in my pocket), and I stopped missing buses,
but found I was waiting for them longer and longer as the watch went
farther off. So I compensated for a while, but then stopped looking at
it. But then I started getting lectures from supermarket checkout
cashiers about leaving my bonus card on the conveyor belt (like I should
care if it gets ground up if they're asleep on their feet), so I hooked
the watch (now hours off) to the bonus card, and now I don't get lectures
(and still don't care if they both get ground up). Now I find that the
number of times I really need to know what time it is is less than the
number of "free" minutes I get on the cell phone (which has an internal
clock that isn't much better than the dollar-store watch), and I just call
the time lady (whose number the cell phone keeps on top of its pile). I
can foresee the day when I'll have a Web-enabled cell phone whose power-up
page will be the atomic clock in South Park, Colorado (or wherever it is).
You know, for when I'm sitting in the food court killing time until the
bus arrives and it's too much bother to walk over and look at the Orange
Julius clock.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
Tony Cooper
>
>
> I gave away my last real watch to someone who could put it to better use.
I don't see how married men can get along without a watch.
How else can you say "You said you'd be ready in a minute
twenty minutes ago!" to your wife?
Donna Richoux
> Leon I. Ramky <leon.i...@GoFor21.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm curious about what "the bottom half of the hour" means. It could mean
> > the interval from 15 minutes to 45 minutes after the hour (the bottom half
> > of a clock face), or it could mean the final half of the hour. The Hunt for
> > Red October evades this issue by showing 5:40 on the clock face.
>
> tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote:
>
> >I'm not really familiar with "bottom half of the hour." Now, "at the
> >bottom of the hour," yes. For example, look at this CNN Radio schedule:
> >
> > 2:00 AM Top of the Hour Newscast
> > 2:30 AM Bottom of the Hour Newscast
> > 3:00 AM Top of the Hour Newscast
> > 3:30 AM Bottom of the Hour Newscast
> >
> >Clearly, the reason is the position of the minute hand on a traditional
> >clockface.
>
> Since those shows appear to be named for their starting times, clearly the
> reason, as you say, is the position of the minute hand on a traditional
> clock face. But suppose an event occurs "during" the bottom half of the
> hour? (Captain Ramius supposedly "always goes to starboard during the
> bottom half of the hour?") What are the starting and ending times of this
> interval?
I take it that Lark is Leon?
I'm not convinced that "top half of the hour" and "bottom half of the
hour" are idiomatic English. There are only 11 hits for "top half of the
hour" in Google, and almost all of those refer to the "top half of the
hour-glass". For "bottom half of the hour," there are only 28 hits,
about half of them being for "bottom half of the hour-glass".
There are only a few instances that match the usage you describe:
The story seems to be repeating in the top half of every hour,
but sometimes they will faze stories, particularly "human interest"
stories...
On "L&O," the top half of each hour episode focuses on the police,
while the bottom half focuses on the ...
Estimate the change in the population during the bottom half of the
hour (ie. between time 30 and 60 minutes).
It looks like this is matching up with the "top half of the hour" idea
described above -- the "top half" begins at the top of the hour, and the
"bottom half" begins at the bottom of the hour. But I don't have much
data to go on for this guess, because it really isn't common.
--
Best --- Donna Richoux
Padraig Breathnach
>I don't see how married men can get along without a watch.
>How else can you say "You said you'd be ready in a minute
>twenty minutes ago!" to your wife?
>
You don't need a watch for that. The husband's plaint is traditionally
based on a correspondingly inaccurate notion of time.
PB
Richard Fontana
> Also, having read many books (mostly fiction) by British authors, I
> am familiar with "half six [seven/eight]" et cetera. I don't use the
> term at all. (This relates to your earlier statement that, "In
> particular, an expression such as "half six" is entirely unknown
> among native speakers of English in the United States of America.")
Okay, that was a ********ian sort of exaggeration or
hypergeneralization. But it seems that knowledge of "half
six" (etc.) among Americans generally comes about from exposure to UK
cultural materials (such as British novels).
> Is my experience or knowledge unusual in the US? I don't think so. I
> will agree with you, though, that the usage of "half past, quarter
> of" and so on, is dying out, and all but dead. IMO, this would be
> partially because of digital clocks and watches, but also because
> people who are familiar with the terms seldom, if ever, use them.
Me, I don't sense that "quarter to", "quarter after", "ten to", "ten
after" are really dying out, though I think people are more likely say,
say, "six ten" than they once were.
Laura F Spira
has lost more clocks and watches than I can remember, so extra allowance
has to be built in for him. A converse adjustment is required for my
mother who for no logical reason keeps all her timepieces ten minutes
fast and my husband and I who both suffer from a congenital fear of
being late so are always early, sometimes embarrassingly so. Our
daughter is terrifyingly prompt and you could set your watch by Em, the
cat.
I have to wear my watch all the time. It was my father's and is one of
those with no visible means of power - if you take it off, it stops.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
Don Aitken
If non-native speakers restrict themselves entirely to terms that are
part of "international English" they will end up with pretty
impoverished vocabularies. Indeed there will be many things they can't
talk about at all. I can see no good reason why a European learning
English should be told to avoid usages which are restricted to the UK.
--
Don Aitken
Skitt
"Fabian" <mu...@chung.ii> wrote in message
news:9tsuqt$uq4$1...@news5.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
> "Skitt" <sk...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:9ts0bm$49d7n$1...@ID-61580.news.dfncis.de...
> >
> > "BV" <bass....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C0180F5...@ntlworld.com...
> >
> > > To agree with the other UK speakers - "half six" has the same meaning
> > > as "half past six" and indicates 06:30 or 18:30. This is different
> > > from the German practice, which we find bizarre. I don't think there
> > > is a French equivalent.
> >
> > It is not only in German that the "half six" form denotes 5:30, but it
> > is true in several other European languages, as was noted before. It
> > makes much more sense than the meaning of 6:30, as being half of
> > something cannot possibly be more than the something. What it means
> > in German and several other European languages is that the time is
> > halfway between the previous hour and six o'clock -- namely 5:30.
> > That figures, whereas it meaning 6:30 makes no sense at all.
>
> Why is it so illogical that "half six" should mean 6:30?
Well, if you were expecting me to give you a pie and a half, would you be
happy with a half pie? If so, I want to do business with you. Pay me for
the one and a half pies, and I'll give you a half pie.
> One could just as
> easily argue that "twenty one" should mean 19, by subtracting one from
> twenty. Here in England, we think of it as adding the two numbers
> together. half plus six is six and a half.
Good grief! Hold onto your straw man -- it's being blown away by the winds
of good sense.
>
> Maltese say "one thirty" (well, wiehed u tletin) when they mean 31. Are
> you going to insist that they mean 29?
Good heavens, no. But there's a big difference between "one thirty" and
"half thirty", ain't it? I hope you are joking.
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel of "Fawlty Towers" (he's from Barcelona).
Brian Wickham
<rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>On Sun, 25 Nov 2001, the guy with the eye wrote:
>
>> Several times, I've heard English native speakers say things like "at half
>> six" or "at half seven etc .
>> Is "half six" just a shorter way of saying "half past six" or is it like in
>> German where it would mean "half past five"? Is "half six" Standard English
>> or should I avoid it?
>
>"Half six" as an indication of some sort of clock time is not standard
>international English. The only reason I am even aware of its existence
>is that we've discussed it on AUE before. In particular, an expression
>such as "half six" is entirely unknown among native speakers of English in
>the United States of America, home to a substantial number of native
>speakers of English. It may be standard *British* English, but I
>can't say for certain, and I don't even know what "half six" means (I
>assume it's either 5:30 or 6:30).
>
>Some American speakers call 6:30 "half past six", but I believe this is a
>slowly disappearing usage.
>
I have heard the expression "half six" used quite a lot in West Cork,
Ireland on the few occasions I have been there.
I'm an American speaker and I use "half past six" as well as "six
thirty". I also use "a quarter of" and "a quarter after" But I
should note that my mother was from the UK so I may have picked up
some of her locutions. Nevertheles, no one has ever questioned my
usage over the years so it must be common in the NYC area. If there
is anything that will kill these usages it will be digital clocks.
Actually I tried a digital watch in the early 1980s and felt
ridiculous telling people it was now seven forty eight instead of
seven of eight.
Brian Wickham
Brian Wickham
wrote:
>On Sun, 25 Nov 2001 20:12:36 -0500, Richard Fontana <rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu>
>wrote:
>
>
>>No, I believe it's something that predates the popularization of digital
>>clocks and watches, which at any rate never enjoyed the success that was
>>predicted for them. "Half past six", my linguistic intuition tells me, is
>>a usage more likely to be used by people of an Older Generation. Similar
>>'older' disappearing usages include "quarter of" and "quarter
>>till" ("quarter to" is still quite popular).
>>
>>> When someone asks the time, and I happen to have a digital watch on, I see
>>> 6:41:20 on the watch and say "just half past six".
>>
>>Hmm. There I'd say "twenty to seven" or "about six forty".
>
>Then the younger generation will no longer appreciale James Thurber's pun:
>
>"What type is it?"
>"Half past hate, or a quarter to fight."
>
>My father-in-law, who rarely wore a wrist watch, when asked the time would say
>"A hair past a freckle."
>
>
In the 1940s there was a sarcastic reply to those who were always
asking the time: "Half past the cow's ass."
Brian Wickham
Brian Wickham
Ramky) wrote:
>"the guy with the eye" <theguywi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Several times, I've heard English native speakers say things like "at half
>>six" or "at half seven etc .
>
>I'm curious about what "the bottom half of the hour" means. It could mean
>the interval from 15 minutes to 45 minutes after the hour (the bottom half
>of a clock face), or it could mean the final half of the hour. The Hunt for
>Red October evades this issue by showing 5:40 on the clock face.
>--
>"Leon I. Ramky" is actually 01529...@GoFor21.com (01529 34786).
> 0123 4 56789 <-Use this key to decode my email address and name.
>
In American broadcasting we talk of "the top of the clock" and we mean
on the hour precisely, although we also use the expression "straight
up" to indicate the time at any minute, but to the second, as in "At
6:15 straight up." I have also heard "bottom of the clock", less
often, to mean on the half hour precisely.
Brian Wickham
Skitt
"Brian Wickham" <bwic...@nyc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3c02a7aa...@news-server.nyc.rr.com...
> Actually I tried a digital watch in the early 1980s and felt
> ridiculous telling people it was now seven forty eight instead of
> seven of eight.
Aha! It kept you from making a grave mistake!
Skitt
"Laura F Spira" <la...@DRAGONspira.u-net.com> wrote in message
news:3C02A3E0...@DRAGONspira.u-net.com...
> We have time problems in our family. Our son is never ready on time and
> has lost more clocks and watches than I can remember, so extra allowance
> has to be built in for him. A converse adjustment is required for my
> mother who for no logical reason keeps all her timepieces ten minutes
> fast and my husband and I who both suffer from a congenital fear of
> being late so are always early, sometimes embarrassingly so.
Ai, ai, ai! There you go again ... and me noticed.
John Nurick
wrote:
>Ante-penultimate was used, if not coined, in the 1950s by Flanders and Swann in
>their ditty "Have some Madeira, M'Dear"
>
> Then it flashed through her mind what her mother has said, with her
>antepenultimate breath;
> 'Oh, my child, if you look on the wine that is red then prepare for a fate
>worse than death!'
>
>It was certainly astonishing when first heard, so I guess they must have made it
>up.
NSOED says "L17", i.e. it's first known to have appeared in print
between 1670 and 1699.
--
John
split $q,q[ acehJklnoPrstu]; $q.=$_[$_] for map hex, unpack
q,a,x29,q;89D010B3170A3B7041263B01D0177;;print qq;...$q.\n;
Mike Barnes
>I have to wear my watch all the time. It was my father's and is one of
>those with no visible means of power - if you take it off, it stops.
Should we call you "Laura the Invisible"?
--
Mike "no watch and no diary" Barnes
seb
wrote:
>On Mon, 26 Nov 2001 05:02:31 GMT, "Pat Durkin" <durk...@nothome.com>
>wrote:
>
>>"R H Draney" <dado...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>>news:3c01bab0....@news.earthlink.net...
>>>
>>> In fact, I remember being amused for some time by the definition of a
>>> "preantepenultimate syllable" (which turned up in a limerick) as "last
>>> but three"....r
>>
>>That's great. I was trying to figure out the "pre-" penultimate prefix, the
>>other day, and had to work around it. Now, why not post the limerick??
>
>One simple reason: I didn't memorize it and can't remember where it
>was...probably one of Espy's books of word games...Google gives me 234
>hits on the word alone, most of which seem to think it's a useful
>nonsense word for describing oral sex....
>
>I do seem to recall that "preantepenultimate" was the penultimate word
>in the ultimate line of the limerick, with a monosyllable following
>it...don't know if that's any help or not...you could also construct a
>haiku with it alone as the middle line, and it wouldn't surprise me to
>find that some of the regulars here are already working on that....r
Woudln't the antepenultimate (counting by lines) be something like:
There was a man from St. Loo,
Whose limerick would end with line two.
which is a known limerick after a form.
so the preantepinultimate would be some sort of obvious limerick line
that wasn't followed by anything else such as:
There was a young fellow called Rick,
or
There was a young lady from Hunt,
Somebody else should fill in the rest.
seb.
Apurbva Chandra Senray
> away goals outrank home goals in the case of a draw after both games.
A draw. How quaint.
seb
<theguywi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Several times, I've heard English native speakers say things like "at half
>six" or "at half seven etc .
>Is "half six" just a shorter way of saying "half past six" or is it like in
>German where it would mean "half past five"? Is "half six" Standard English
>or should I avoid it?
>
>
I've seen the follow-ups, but if you say half six in the UK you mean
6:30. In Germany i believe you mean 5:30. This is am or pm in the
U.K., Depends on whether a 24 or 12 hour clock is in use (12 in the
U.K. unless you're catching a train or plane). There's no ambiguity.
Just don't say "half six" in the UK when you mean half five and don't
say "Halbe Sechs" (is that correct?) when you mean half six in
Germany.
People will understand if you say "Thirty minutes past six". If you
say "Twenty nine minutes after six" they will be suspicious and
believe that you are a geek.
seb.
Apurbva Chandra Senray
> Clearly, the reason is the position of the minute hand on a traditional
> clockface.
Clearly? I remember my 10th grade math teacher telling me a story
about "clearly" in a proof. I'm sure the mathy types here could tell
it.
Anyway, I'm just as sure that the term came from baseball, as was
stated before.
Rob Bannister
> Richard Fontana wrote:
> >
> > "Half six" as an indication of some sort of clock time is not standard
> > international English. The only reason I am even aware of its existence
> > is that we've discussed it on AUE before. In particular, an expression
> > such as "half six" is entirely unknown among native speakers of English in
> > the United States of America,
>
> Where do you come up with these generalities? Anyone that's
> seen a J. Arthur Rank production, watched a British
> television show, or read a novel set in the UK has probably
> seen this expression. Then, there are a few of us that have
> actually traveled to the UK and been told the train leaves
> at half six. It is far from an instantly recognizable
> phrase in the US, but not an entirely unknown phrase.
>
> > Some American speakers call 6:30 "half past six", but I believe this is a
> > slowly disappearing usage.
>
> The digital watch and the digital clock have eroded the
> usage of any expression of time that is not
> up-to-the-minute. My watch has only hands, so I still say
> "half past", "quarter past" or "ten to". It's "past" if
> it's before the half hour, and "to" if it's after the half
> hour. It's six forty-X if I'm looking at a digital clock.
Digital watches seem to have completely eroded children's ability to understand
time. You ask one: "What's the time?" They answer, "Ten forty-seven." Quiz the
child further: "So it's about quarter to eleven?" Blank incomprehension. Try
again: "Is 10.47 closer to 11 or 10 o'clock?" They walk away. All this, even
though they know the entire class's digital watches all chime the hour at
completely different times - well, I'm exaggerating - watch alarms are now
banned in school, but when digital watches were new, it was like that.
-- Rob Bannister
Rob Bannister
> On Mon, 26 Nov 2001, Tony Cooper wrote:
>
> > Richard Fontana wrote:
> > >
> > > No, I believe it's something that predates the popularization of digital
> > > clocks and watches, which at any rate never enjoyed the success that was
> > > predicted for them.
> >
> > I don't know what was predicted for digital watches,
>
> Well, they certainly didn't replace analog watches, nor did digital
> clocks replace analog clocks. They peacefully coexist today, and they
> really have for the past couple of decades or more.
>
> > but
> > almost all sports watch are either digital or analog and
> > digital. Those great, lumpy black sports watches seem to be
> > on everyone. To time laps that are never run and for
> > stopwatch determination of exercises not done.
>
> If anything, I have the sense that digital watches are not as popular
> today as they were back in the day when they still had novelty value. I
> think there are a lot of people out there like me who went through a
> digital watch stage (usually in early adolescence) but who then matured
> and went back to more traditional devices.
Or, in my case, because my eyesight has reached the point where only the hands
are visible without my glasses.
-- Rob Bannister
Evan Kirshenbaum
> My father-in-law, who rarely wore a wrist watch, when asked the time
> would say "A hair past a freckle."
Interesting. In my family it was just the opposite: a freckle past a
hair.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Of course, over the first 10^-10
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |seconds and 10^-30 cubic
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |centimeters it averages out to
|zero, but when you look in
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |detail....
(650)857-7572 | Philip Morrison
Brian Wickham
satchi
Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>
> haye...@yahoo.com (Steve Hayes) writes:
>
> > My father-in-law, who rarely wore a wrist watch, when asked the time
> > would say "A hair past a freckle."
>
> Interesting. In my family it was just the opposite: a freckle past a
> hair.
>
My stepdad always referred to 2:30 as "chinese dentist time".
Satchi
I wouldn't repeat what we referred to him as.
http://www.bombhumor.com
satchi
satchi wrote:
>
> Brian Wickham wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 26 Nov 2001 13:14:41 -0800, "Skitt" <sk...@earthlink.net>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >"Brian Wickham" <bwic...@nyc.rr.com> wrote in message
> > >news:3c02a7aa...@news-server.nyc.rr.com...
> > >
> > >> Actually I tried a digital watch in the early 1980s and felt
> > >> ridiculous telling people it was now seven forty eight instead of
> > >> seven of eight.
>
> My father (yes I collect them) was fascinated by the watches that you
> had to move your wrist back and forth to wind them. One of his last
> trips abroad in his late 70's he came back to the US from Valencia,
> Spain one time and was so proud of his Seiko watch that he bought 'on
> the street' for $100. US when they usually sold here
> in the States for about a thousand dollars. I didn't have the heart to
> tell him, after I inspected it closely, that it actually said Seeko.
> It was a good thing his sense of time was one of the first things to go
> as that watch stayed at 4:15 (quarter past four) until the day he died.
> He didn't really care what time it was, he loved the morning ritual of
> the wrist turning.
>
> Satchi
> http://www.bombhumor.com
Kid, do not try this posting at home.
Satchi
I should probably get some sleep.
http://www.bombhumor.com
Maria Conlon
Richard Fontana wrote
>Maria Conlon wrote:
[...]
>> Is my experience or knowledge unusual in the US? I don't think
so. I
>> will agree with you, though, that the usage of "half past,
quarter
>> of" and so on, is dying out, and all but dead. IMO, this would be
>> partially because of digital clocks and watches, but also because
>> people who are familiar with the terms seldom, if ever, use them.
>Me, I don't sense that "quarter to", "quarter after", "ten to",
"ten
>after" are really dying out,
Nor do I. The use of "to" and "after" (the hour) is very common.
It's the "of" and "past" that I think are little used.
>...though I think people are more likely say,
>say, "six ten" than they once were.
Could be. At least we are more likely to say "six eleven" or "nine
seventeen and 20 seconds" than we did in the pre-digital past.
One of my favorite time-related sayings is: "I took off my watch and
found I had all the time in the world." From a song, but I can't
remember the name of it.
Maria (Tootsie)
Charles Riggs
<tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>What do the common folk do? Wear sports watches. Most, but
>not all, sports watches are digital. Look in the display
>cases of any store that carries watches - especially the
>under $100 watches - and they are mostly digital.
I don't know about the common folk of Florida -- I realise they can be
pretty common -- but the common folk of most places I've lived in
recently definitely do not wear digital watches, now that the novelty
has totally worn off. Digital watches are for nerds. My classiest
watch, and I own several watches, doesn't even have numerals. Now,
that's sophistication, to wear one of them guys, especially if it's
gold, as mine is.
Charles Riggs
Charles Riggs
<phi...@weather.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>I ceased wearing a watch when I stopped working myself
>into the ground. I thought I would have withdrawal symptoms
>but after a few days I didn't miss it at all. There are two or
>three clocks around the house. Meetings, visits, and so on,
>are now arranged at approximate times and people know not
>to expect me on the dot. I can heartily recommend casting
>aside this tool of temporal tyranny.
I don't like the time of a scheduled event (1) sneaking up and
catching me unawares. To master time and not let time master you, one
must know the precise time always. I have five clocks in my sitting
room alone and have been known to wear a watch on each wrist.
1. For a man of leisure such as myself, these include such things as
the start of the nightly BBC news, the departure time of the train for
Dublin, and the optimum time for taking my blood pressure tablets.
Charles Riggs
Maria Conlon
Don Aitken wrote
>If non-native speakers restrict themselves entirely to terms that
are
>part of "international English" they will end up with pretty
>impoverished vocabularies. Indeed there will be many things they
can't
>talk about at all. I can see no good reason why a European learning
>English should be told to avoid usages which are restricted to the
UK.
Right. Learning and using phrases or idioms restricted to any one
English-speaking location should not be a "no-no."
But the non-native speaker of English should limit such usages to
places where they are understood properly. Take "half six," for
example. Why not use it to mean 6:30 in the UK? Just be aware that
it may mean 5:30 somewhere else and adjust accordingly if you're
"somewhere else." And with a word like "fanny," one must be aware of
the local perception/usage. That is, don't be shocked when it's used
in places other than England to mean a somewhat different part of
the body.
The non-native speaker of English should also know that a "boot" in
England may convey the mental picture of a car storage area; in the
US, it will convey the mental picture of something you wear on your
foot. (Context helps in avoiding misunderstanding, of course.)
There are many examples of words or terms used in the UK that don't
"translate" well (that is, correctly) to other English-speaking
areas. Thus the non-native speaker of English will have much to
learn if he or she wishes to use those words or terms in
conversations or written communications. The same goes for any
variant of English.
So basically, I agree that certain ways of saying things need not be
avoided. It's just that there are caveats.
I am curious, by the way, Don, as to why you limit your statement to
"a European learning English." What about an Asian learning English?
A Central American, an African? Anyone from anywhere?
Maria (Tootsie)
Mike Barnes
>
>
>Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>>
>> haye...@yahoo.com (Steve Hayes) writes:
>>
>> > My father-in-law, who rarely wore a wrist watch, when asked the time
>> > would say "A hair past a freckle."
>>
>> Interesting. In my family it was just the opposite: a freckle past a
>> hair.
>>
>
>My stepdad always referred to 2:30 as "chinese dentist time".
Ten to ten: "cowboy time".
Also the hour, especially when well known, was often described by
reference to some part of Mickey Mouse's anatomy - "half past his left
ear". Did every family have a Mickey Mouse watch somewhere?
--
Mike Barnes
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>haye...@yahoo.com (Steve Hayes) writes:
>
>> My father-in-law, who rarely wore a wrist watch, when asked the time
>> would say "A hair past a freckle."
>
>Interesting. In my family it was just the opposite: a freckle past a
>hair.
Must be a linear thing then.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Donna Richoux
> haye...@yahoo.com (Steve Hayes) writes:
>
> > My father-in-law, who rarely wore a wrist watch, when asked the time
> > would say "A hair past a freckle."
>
> Interesting. In my family it was just the opposite: a freckle past a
> hair.
Two hairs past a freckle, in mine.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
the guy with the eye
news:3c02da7e...@news.tesco.net...
> >
> I've seen the follow-ups, but if you say half six in the UK you >mean
> 6:30. In Germany i believe you mean 5:30.
> This is am or pm in the
> U.K.,
In Germany "halb sechs" can either be am or pm, too.
> Depends on whether a 24 or 12 hour clock is in use (12 in the
> U.K. unless you're catching a train or plane). There's no ambiguity.
> Just don't say "half six" in the UK when you mean half five and don't
> say "Halbe Sechs" (is that correct?)
Actually, it's "halb sechs", although numbers are usually feminine.
> when you mean half six in
> Germany.
>
> People will understand if you say "Thirty minutes past six". If >you
> say "Twenty nine minutes after six" they will be suspicious and
> believe that you are a geek.
What is the difference between this "past" and "after" when referring to
times?
I've read from many posts here that people think that "past" in this sense
is dying out or is at least used less.
But is "after" in this really so common in the UK, too? I always thought it
was only American English.
And thanks to everyone who has explained this "half six" thing to me!
R H Draney
<chr...@gofree.indigo.ie> wrote:
>I don't know about the common folk of Florida -- I realise they can be
>pretty common -- but the common folk of most places I've lived in
>recently definitely do not wear digital watches, now that the novelty
>has totally worn off. Digital watches are for nerds. My classiest
>watch, and I own several watches, doesn't even have numerals. Now,
>that's sophistication, to wear one of them guys, especially if it's
>gold, as mine is.
Call that classy?...some of my watches don't even have *dots* where
the numerals should be...I've actually had members of the
digital-watch generation ask "but then how do you tell the time?"...
Seriously, nine watches, and the only one with anything digital has a
background display that alternates the minutes and day of the month,
while the analog hands show the time in the conventional
"Mickey's-big-hand-is-on-the-three" manner...the majority have no
numbers around the edge of the dial, and only two (apart from the
part-digital one) have date indicators....
I used to have some with the day, date and month displayed on smaller
eyes within the watch face, but they stopped working...one even had
the phase of the moon, a feature I can't seem to find in a
reasonably-priced wristwatch any more....r
--
"But time is not like tomatoes;
it's more like bulk flour" - sam
Don Aitken
<mcon...@sprynet.com> wrote:
>
>Don Aitken wrote
>
>>If non-native speakers restrict themselves entirely to terms that
>are
>>part of "international English" they will end up with pretty
>>impoverished vocabularies. Indeed there will be many things they
>can't
>>talk about at all. I can see no good reason why a European learning
>>English should be told to avoid usages which are restricted to the
>UK.
>
[big snip of stuff I agree with]
>
>I am curious, by the way, Don, as to why you limit your statement to
>"a European learning English." What about an Asian learning English?
>A Central American, an African? Anyone from anywhere?
>
I only mentioned it because the original question was posted from
Germany. The poster is therefore more likely to find himself dealing
with British speakers than those in other parts of the world, which to
my mind makes the advice he was given even less appropriate. You have
generalised the point I was making (quite rightly, I think); in that
context I would not introduce any such limitation.
--
Don Aitken
Don Aitken
<mcon...@sprynet.com> wrote:
>
>Richard Fontana wrote
>
>>Me, I don't sense that "quarter to", "quarter after", "ten to",
>>"ten after" are really dying out,
>
>Nor do I. The use of "to" and "after" (the hour) is very common.
>It's the "of" and "past" that I think are little used.
>
and, while they may be less frequently used than they were, I
certainly don't think they are "dying out". "Of" and "after" would be
categorised as Americanisms, and don't show any sign of catching on.
--
Don Aitken
Don Aitken
<chr...@gofree.indigo.ie> wrote:
>I don't like the time of a scheduled event (1) sneaking up and
>catching me unawares. To master time and not let time master you, one
>must know the precise time always. I have five clocks in my sitting
>room alone and have been known to wear a watch on each wrist.
>
>1. For a man of leisure such as myself, these include such things as
>the start of the nightly BBC news, the departure time of the train for
>Dublin, and the optimum time for taking my blood pressure tablets.
>
Have you never suspected a connection between the clocks and the blood
pressure?
--
Don Aitken
Skitt
"Charles Riggs" <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie> wrote in message
news:bg860u8c4sbi1at2l...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 26 Nov 2001 11:54:35 -0000, "Philip Eden"
> <phi...@weather.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >I ceased wearing a watch when I stopped working myself
> >into the ground. I thought I would have withdrawal symptoms
> >but after a few days I didn't miss it at all. There are two or
> >three clocks around the house. Meetings, visits, and so on,
> >are now arranged at approximate times and people know not
> >to expect me on the dot. I can heartily recommend casting
> >aside this tool of temporal tyranny.
>
> I don't like the time of a scheduled event (1) sneaking up and
> catching me unawares. To master time and not let time master you, one
> must know the precise time always. I have five clocks in my sitting
> room alone and have been known to wear a watch on each wrist.
That made me look around the room I'm in, and I counted nine time-keeping
devices (including the computer and a TV) around me. I was astounded to see
this, but it came from combining households and moving from a larger house
to a smaller one upon leaving Florida. One of the clocks (the one sitting
on the floor and leaning against the wall) has been temporarily relocated
from the living room, as its space is now occupied by Christmas decorations.
That has left the living room with only two time-keeping devices -- the TV
and the VCR.
My wristwatch (fancy digital) rests on the nightstand, and that is its
normal place, unless I'm leaving the house. My other wristwatch (plain
digital, but it keeps better time) is in the nightstand drawer, and it gets
used to set the other timepieces, when necessary. My analog wristwatch gave
up the ghost one of the times I had to do the "fall back" time setting. The
gears stripped.
As for my punctuality -- I'm compulsively early when I have to take travel
time into account.
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>On Tue, 27 Nov 2001 05:27:21 +0000, Charles Riggs
><chr...@gofree.indigo.ie> wrote:
>
>>I don't know about the common folk of Florida -- I realise they can be
>>pretty common -- but the common folk of most places I've lived in
>>recently definitely do not wear digital watches, now that the novelty
>>has totally worn off. Digital watches are for nerds. My classiest
>>watch, and I own several watches, doesn't even have numerals. Now,
>>that's sophistication, to wear one of them guys, especially if it's
>>gold, as mine is.
>
>Call that classy?...some of my watches don't even have *dots* where
>the numerals should be...I've actually had members of the
>digital-watch generation ask "but then how do you tell the time?"...
So you think that's classy? Mine is gold with a black face sans dots
or markings of any kind, it is a pocket watch, and it is attached to a
gold chain with a tiny gold-cased pocket knife at the other end. Now,
there.
Charles Riggs
dcw
"After" would cause no problems, although we don't say it, but I think
most of us would not understand "of". I don't.
To get back to the topic, I think of "half six" as an abbreviation of
"half past six". It's unambiguous, because the only word that could
have been omitted is "past" -- we don't say "half to". And it isn't
omitted with "quarter" etc., where it would be ambiguous.
I've missed a lot of this thread, but has anyone reported when "half
six" was first used? I remember finding it a bit odd when I first
heard it, and have never used it myself.
David
Laura F Spira
>
> In alt.usage.english, Laura F Spira <la...@DRAGONspira.u-net.com> wrote
> >I have to wear my watch all the time. It was my father's and is one of
> >those with no visible means of power - if you take it off, it stops.
>
> Should we call you "Laura the Invisible"?
>
> --
> Mike "no watch and no diary" Barnes
Several snappy answers occur to me but I am distracted by your sig. But
of course! It's easy to manage without a diary if you have a wife and/or
a secretary. Do make sure she gets you to the boink on time, won't you
(ISOC)?
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
Laura F Spira
>
> "Laura F Spira" <la...@DRAGONspira.u-net.com> wrote in message
> news:3C02A3E0...@DRAGONspira.u-net.com...
>
> > We have time problems in our family. Our son is never ready on time and
> > has lost more clocks and watches than I can remember, so extra allowance
> > has to be built in for him. A converse adjustment is required for my
> > mother who for no logical reason keeps all her timepieces ten minutes
> > fast and my husband and I who both suffer from a congenital fear of
> > being late so are always early, sometimes embarrassingly so.
>
> Ai, ai, ai! There you go again ... and me noticed.
>
It was my brush with royalty at an early age wot did it. Wot's your
excuse?