Ad
related to: 12 hour clock in english
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The 12-hour clock has been developed since the second millennium BC and reached its modern form in the 16th century. The 12-hour time convention is common in several English-speaking nations and former British colonies, as well as a few other countries.
In most English-speaking regions, the 12-hour clock is the predominant form of representing the time of day physically, while the 24-hour clock is generally used for contexts where unambiguity and accurate timekeeping are important, such as for public transport schedules.
The 24-hour notation is used in timetables and on most digital clocks, but 12-hour notation is still widely used in ordinary life. The 24-hour notation is used more often than in North America – transport timetables use it exclusively, as do most legal documents – but not as commonly as in much of the non-English-speaking world.
The 24-hour clock is used in military, public safety, and scientific contexts in the United States. [4] It is best known for its use by the military and is therefore commonly called "military time". In U.S. military use, 24-hour time is traditionally written without a colon (1800 instead of 18:00).
The time of day is typically expressed in English in terms of hours. Whole hours on a 12-hour clock are expressed using the contracted phrase o'clock, from the older of the clock. [6] (10 am and 10 pm are both read as "ten o'clock".) Hours on a 24-hour clock ("military time") are expressed as "hundred" or "hundred hours".
The government describes the 24-hour system as "desirable" but does not enforce its use, meaning that the 12-hour clock remains common for oral and informal usage in English-speaking contexts. [27] It is not the recommended style in journalism, for example. [28] This situation is similar to the use of the 24-hour clock in the United Kingdom.
This page was last edited on 27 April 2020, at 06:54 (UTC).; Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may ...
The relative phrases are exclusive to the 12-hour clock, just as the "(hour) Uhr (minutes)" format is exclusive to the 24-hour clock. For hours greater than 12 and non-zero minutes, "Uhr" is sometimes omitted, especially for the half hours between 13:30 and 19:30.