this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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I asked someone to stop saying “half 5” as a time since it was ambiguous & confusing, especially given that we weren’t in an English-speaking country & folks come from all over (many culture this means one thing or the other, while many—including where I grew up—don’t even use it as an expression). I asked a few times, then another time we were gonna meet up, I asked him “half five ha” “so what time do you really mean?” “half 5” …so I just didn’t show up, wasn’t in the mood. We haven’t really talked since.
I had to look that up and I've always lived in an English speaking country. Such a weird way to say 5:30.
4:30 in the Netherlands & German IIRC
It's before the time?
When you do not include a preposition like til or past or before or after there is no way to underestand relative to which side of the hour. This is why it is interpreted differently in some cultures. This is also why no one I grew up with ever said anything other than 5:30, 6:30 PM, or 17:3:0 since—aside from the 12-hour Anglophone clock thing—you can remove both ambiguity & doing mental math (also typing less characters).
Funny when I first read about it: https://en.m.wikivoyage.org/wiki/English_language_varieties#Date_and_time
Which had explicit instructions