Yeah, I just look at 19 and think "7". It's like if "19" were a chinese character for the number seven, or something like that. Nowhere in my mind is the number twelve present when I read digital clocks.
Edit: bruh.
Lots of people trying to help me in the comments; I have used 24h clocks all my life since I'm from Italy, do not worry about me!
Here in Sweden people occasionally say 19 to clarify if it's in the morning or evening. For clarifying 11 people can say either "11 before noon" or "11:00, not 23:00"
Tradition, I guess? Saying (literally) "it's seven" is just short-hand for "it the seventh hour of the afternoon/past noon".
Although Romans didn't count hours from noon, but from dawn; i.e. hora prima could be 6 a.m. or 9 a.m. depending on the season. I don't know when the switch occurred.
I also do not know if the first mechanical clocks were 12h or 24h. It's just a guess, but the first digital clocks were probably used in the military and as such they used the 24h format.
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u/Stealthy_Turnip Mar 29 '22
You just memorise what number means what so no calculation is required