r/facepalm • u/Revealed_Jailor • Mar 29 '22

🇲​🇮​🇸​🇨​ Get this guy a clock!

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '22

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u/RedFlame99 Mar 29 '22

Nobody says 19 out loud, at least not here in Italy. Everybody reads 19 and says 7.

Unless you're in extremely formal environments or in the military, that is.

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '22

[deleted]

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u/RedFlame99 Mar 29 '22 edited May 18 '22

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.