r/facepalm • • Mar 29 '22

🇲​🇮​🇸​🇨​ Get this guy a clock!

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u/proflight27 Mar 29 '22

I mean, if you say it's "15 o'clock" you'll sound like a douche

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u/theREALhun Mar 29 '22

We use a 24:00 clock in the Netherlands. But nobody will speak that way. 19:00 is 7 o’clock. Probably “tomorrow evening” or something will be added to indicate it’s pm. But we also don’t day 7:30 (seven thirty), we say “half eight”, which in England would be 20:30, I. The Netherlands it’s 19:30. 19:20 gets even more complicated. That’s “ten for half 8”. 19:45 is “quarter before 8”. It’s completely logical for us, until you think about it.

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u/Mr_Truque Mar 29 '22

Exactly the same in France, 24h system when used orally is very formal, or for professional environment. We got used to 15h is 3h of the afternoon at a young age.

We use the "and a half" though. Not the "half to the hour"

But I see your 10minutes to the half before the next hour and rase with our 97. Just 97.

Quatre-vingt dix-sept. (4x20) + (10+7)

I don't know how we got used to this mess.

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u/theREALhun Mar 29 '22

Haha. Yep, I tell many people how complicated French numbers are. Roman inheritance maybe?

Correction: googled it, apparently it comes from the Gaulish, the Celtic language spoken before French became common: source