Military Time vs 24hr?
Why is it that Americans refer to 24 hour time as military time? I understand that the military uses the 24hr format but I don’t understand why the general public would refer to it like that?
It makes it seem like it’s a foreign concept where as in a lot of countries it’s the norm.
In the US, the 12-hour clock format is in widespread use, except in the military. That is why it's called like that.
It’s interesting that it’s not as widespread amongst the public.As far as I know, the rest of the world either uses it or is able to understand it whereas I’ve had the opposite with Americans. I’m a very limited sample size though.
Americans understand it just fine.
Just like I understand what a meter is, but in real life, I would NEVER use the meter as a unit of measurement.
Yeah, I know metric is the better system, I agree. This isn't about that. It's about saying something and not making the listener take a moment to convert it into how they relate to the world.
Look up the "theory of American exceptionalism". In short there is a very strong belief here that America is one of a kind and things that may work for others simply don't apply here.
Explains why the US stocks a 12hr clock, messed up month/day/year mission, imperial measurement and a ton of other things that any foreigner will find anywhere from quirky to infuriating.
IMHO the exceptionalism theory is a b.s. lazy way of keeping things conservative and unchanged and shutting down any discussion of uncomfortable progress.
I live in the US and I've never met someone who isn't able to understand it. They might need to convert it in their heads to compare it with other times.
You'd think 24 hour watches would be more common than they are especially among European watches.
My kid had the hardest time reading a 12 hour clock. I think am/pm is too abstract for young kids. 24 hour makes more intuitive sense. The number resets only at the end of the day.
As far as I know the Japanese use it aswell. I learned 午後 and 午前 as vocab at least. (Am and pm)
There is a cultural phenomenon called schismogenesis - the tendency for one culture to define itself by how it differs from other cultures around it. Even in cases where the culture Y approach is “better” by whatever metric, culture X people will reject it because it’s a Y thing and not an X thing. I see the US rejection of the metric system under Reagan being the most glaringly obvious example of this, but the time thing is probably part of it, too.
I just really wish we hadn’t gone with the whole base 60 system in the first place.
Adding on to that most civilians are only exposed to 24 hr time in a field that was either organizationally based off of the military such as police or emergency medicine or in fields where it's important to have precise time keeping like hospitals
We don't use it in Canada, except military or hospital records.
Because the average American is much more likely to bump into American military personnel than people from countries that use 24 hour time. It's really as simple as that.
And this isn't because we're uncultured swine, it's because we're separated by two oceans from most countries.
not mutually exclusive
Lots of good answers here, but I don't see anyone mentioning the minor differences between military time and 24 hour. With military time, they don't use a colon when writing it, and they always verbally say the leading zero. So a time using a 24 hour clock is written 06:00 or 6:00 and said verbally as "six o'clock", but with military time, it is written as 0600 and said verbally as "Oh six hundred hours".
That's it. That's the only difference. Though many Americans do indeed incorrectly call any 24 hour clock "military time". I myself used to say it incorrectly when I was a kid because my parents said it incorrectly.
Related question. Do 24 hour clock folks say fourteen o'clock if they're talking about 2pm?
I'm german. if it's completely unambiguous, we simply say "dinner is at 6" or "my shift ends at 4". but when you want to make sure that there's no room for confusion we say "let's meet at 21 o'clock".
In my country younger individuals like me use the 24 hour system a lot verbally. Older generations from before smartphones (which always use 24 hour) uses the 12 hour system more.
But in general I would argue that people use the 24 hour system when talking about something which needs precision, like when the train arrives. And the 12 hour system when talking about something like when to meet a friend (it's still very important to arrive on time though, regardless of how imprecise the time was, "about five" means five.)
I'm a nurse who uses 24-hr time at work and it's about 50/50 with me saying "fourteen hundred" or "2pm" when speaking. I generally find that my colleagues understand both and use both interchangeably.
In Denmark we say "2 o'clock" or just "14", sometimes also "14 o'clock". No one says fourteen hundred, except perhaps for a few military wannabes.
If it's quarter past 2, we'd usually say "14-15". Half past 2 would be "14-30", you get the idea.
If we mean to say "from 2 o'clock to 3 o'clock", we'll say "14 to 15", which I imagine can be confusing for the uninitiated, as the only difference from "quarter past 2" would be a "to".
For those downvoting me, what do you say? I imagine it must be other Danes or neighboring countries, as one surely wouldn't downvote a culturally dependant statement if not from said culture.
I basically always write the time as a four-figure number, and verbally refer to 1400 as "two o'clock", "two in the afternoon" etc. in English but "viertien uur" or "twee uur" in Dutch.
Edit: I used to work in a train station in the UK, and we'd always say train times as (one- or two-figure number)(0 like "o" if it's there)(one- or two-figure number). So 1400 is fourteen-o-o, 1407 is fourteen-o-seven, 1412 is fourteen twelve, 0502 is five-o-two. Among staff, we'd refer to them just by the minutes, so the o-two, the seventeen, the forty-eight, etc.
1400 (fourteen hundred)
Like the bastardization of the 24h clock by the television companies, doesn't Amarican military time also allow for relative time instead of absolute? Like writing 5:00 on the second day of a time critical mission as 2900?
I'm pretty sure I heard this somewhere, though I have yet to verify this claim.
Given how they use different systems to measure almost everything than the rest of the world, I'd say I'm OK with them not using the 24h format, I'd expect them to use something like the 27 American hours, divided in 109 minutes of 31 seconds each.
Its because in America most people's only experience with it is when the movie says "meet here at 0700 hrs." Really isn't much deeper than that, we also call "ranger green" "ranger green" whether an army ranger is wearing it or not, despite it really being "just a shade of green." Sometimes things are just called things.
If this was a case of things just being called things, it would be its own word. For example, a door is called a door because things are just called things. But military time is obviously a reference to something entirely different, that doesn't actually have anything to do with time. So there's more to it than just being called that.
Ranger green is called like that, because it's the shade of green rangers wear. And not "just because". Same with military time. It's called like that because people associate it with military, be it from seeing it in military movies, or by using it in the military themselves.
"Ranger Green" the hell is that?
I'm an army veteran and I've never heard that term. Army Green, yes, but that's pretty rare, too.
What color even is "Ranger Green" other than OD?
Do I look like a swatch to you?
Just remember, civilian Americans aren't the one who named the time system that includes "Oh Six Hundred Hours" Military Time. It was the Goddamned Military. And when the Goddamned Military fucking tells you what something is called, you fucking call it that. No questions.
So we could flip our clock displays to 24 hour time and meet at 14 o'clock, but we'd still be civilians and unworthy to use Military Time. So why bother? Working 9 to 5 is bad enough, working 9 to 17 sounds too fucking exhausting.
The military have longer days than us plebs. They have twenty-four hundred hours when we get a measly twenty-four.
Unfair.
as an american i must say i HATE this as well. people ask me why i use military time and i say it's because there are 24 hours in the day so it makes much more sense to me. and that in other parts of the world they call it international time with the military having nothing to do with it.
makes me wanna scream. thank you for letting me go off.
Not sure if you’ve had the same experience but I had an American colleague ask me what I meant when I didn’t give the time in the 12hr format. The message was something like, “I’ve booked the meeting for 14:00”
Similar things happen to me. All of my devices are in Spanish in addition to 24hr, so anything automated is sent in Spanish to my non speaking colleagues
I'm American but work on transportation where 24hr clock is...sort of the standard.
I prefer 24hr and use it on all my devices, but outside work I pretty much exclusively communicate with 12 hr. No point in using wording I know is gonna be misunderstood when I can comfortably swap between the two.
Knowing Americans they would’ve rejected it if it wasn’t called military time. In fact I reckon if you guys rebranded metric system to military measurements there might be more acceptance to it.
You tried...
It’s called genericide. They encounter the 24 hour measure of time primarily through the US military and its service members so all 24 hour time generally gets called military time.
Similar to why facial tissue is often Kleenex or adhesive bandages are Band-aids in the US.
Hardcore name
I was worried for all the geners.
I spent 20 years in the US military. I had to quickly learn "military time" in order to function, as we were taught 12-hr time growing up in school. I was surprised when I traveled the world and discovered that everyone else uses "military time" (read: international time) as well. I guess Americans just really wanna do their own thing.
I exclusively use military time nowadays. If someone doesn't understand the time I stated, I'll correct it to 12-hr time on the spot, as converting is super easy. Just count back 2 hours and drop the 10's digit by one; e.g. 1600 = 4 PM. 2200 = 10 PM. Etc.
Here in California, I've heard both "military time" and "24 hour time" used interchangeably for writing the time as "03:45" or "16:20". That said, I've heard -- citation needed -- that proper military time does not use the colon, such as "1600", pronounced as "sixteen hundred hours".
As for why the public might refer to this generally as "military time", it may just be that that's the most common, well-known use-case in the States, outside of the sciences. I personally use 24 hour time on all my devices, but I've come across many people who prefer clockfaces or AM/PM, probably out of habit.
By the book, you’re right. No colon when written, and if the last two digits aren’t “00” they are supposed to be pronounced individually.
4:45pm = 1645 = “Sixteen Four Five hours”. (Or “Fooor fife” if you’re a pedant about radios.)
That’s all well and good trivia, in practice it’s usually said “Sixteen forty five” because yeah ain’t nobody got time for all that.
As a fairly-new ham radio operator, I need to improve my numbers pronunciation so maybe I'll start reading the time like that and see how other people react.
Already, I get a number of confused-then-resigned looks when saying "sixteen o'clock" haha
Let’s go out to eat, I made reservations for 7.
Are we having breakfast or dinner?
Without context, tough to tell. That’s why 24hr is superior.
Dinner, because if it's earlier than 7 AM and you're inviting me to an impromptu breakfast, we're not friends anymore, and I'm going back to sleep.
Saturday, I'm going to bed at 9. Forensic that one out.
Lunch. It's 7 people.
Except that's not actually an issue in practice. In a real-world conversation you would disambiguate with "Let's get breakfast" or "Let's get dinner" if you're not referring to the immediate future. I honestly can't think of a single time that I've been genuinely confused in this way.
Edit: Also, when would you ever make reservations for breakfast? Unless this is a joke that's gone over my head.
When it's unclear I'll say 7 in the evening, or 7 in the morning, 7pm, 7am. 7 at night, supper at 7, whichever one isn't pitch dark. There are many ways to go about it.
Local or Zulu?
The average American is likely to have more interaction with American service men and women than Europeans. Most Latin immigrants I know use the 12 hour clock. While the 24 hour clock is preferred in many countries, they are not the countries that immigrate to the US in large enough numbers to influence us or expose us to the 24 hour clock like our own military does.
IMHO, I don’t think that would change anything (with regards to immigrant influence).
EDIT For those downvoting me, I’ll explain it more for you. The vast majority of the world currently uses the metric system. Only three countries officially use the imperial system (UK has mixed usage, including them would bring the number to four.). If the majority of the world uses one system, and the US hasn’t changed, how will migrants influence the country enough to change?
Wait, how would you know whether migrants use the 24 hour clock?
You're not supposed to say "we meet at fifteen thirty", you just say half past three or, in non-English languages sometimes "three in the afternoon".
You only write it as 24 hours because it saves you having to add extra letters to solve the ambiguity. When I interact with Americans I also write "three PM", it's just being polite.
Oh wow. That explains a lot. I always thought that when Americans said “military time”, they meant Zulu time, that is 24h time UTC.
TIL it’s just sparkling 24h local time.
Glad I'm not the only one. I also thought "military" was always UTC and "24" was local time.
Because that's exactly how we see it. It IS a completely foreign concept. The general public does not use 24hr at all. The only time we ever hear it, is when someone in the military says it.
For the people where 24h time is normal …. Is that a more recent development it’s the ubiquity of digital clocks, or would people have also used 24h time with analog clocks, despite them not having a way to display that?
—- looking around, realizing I still hav analog clocks all over because I wanted my kids to be familiar with them. That boat sailed
For the people where 24h time is normal …. Is that a more recent development it’s the ubiquity of digital clocks, or would people have also used 24h time with analog clocks, despite them not having a way to display that?
I've been born in central Europe in the 80's before digital clocks became the norm. 24h was normal even then when writing the precise time. For example in TV schedules. When talking we normally use 12h but without adding AM or PM as it most often is obvious from the context. When it's not then we add "in the morning" "at night". Actually speaking time in a 24h format is very rare. But since it's always encountered in writing, every child learns very early how the 24h system works.
Fascinating. Here in the US it seems similar when talking, but I almost never see 24 hour time, even in writing, except in “military” or similar context. Plus I really haven’t noticed any changes in these habits during my adult lifetime.
we have analog clocks because my wife has forbidden us from living in a minimalist glass and chrome cube where the only decoration is neon lighting and we only wear latex body suits and sunglasses indoors 😿
You have a very cool picture of the future though
In Brazil it has just always been this way. We have normal 12h clock faces and we are used to both 24h and 12h time. The curious thing is that we are used to read and write in 24h, but in speaking the vast majority uses 12h. Probably because it's shorter to say "nove e meia" than "vinte e uma e trinta" for 09:30/21:30
Note Zulu Time (mission time) is equal to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) everywhere in the world.
GMT observes daylight savings as it is in Greenwich England, this is not consistent between countries. UTC does not observe daylight savings.
Incorrect - GMT is a timezone which the UK (and some other countries) observe in winter. In summer, the UK observes BST.
Good explanation here: https://www.timeanddate.com/time/gmt-utc-time.html
All time should work this way. 24 hr time running on GMT.
If someone in Cali wakes up at 1600, the only thing they change is their clocks and calendars, once.
We do all base our time off GMT +/- whatever your timezone is.
It is literally a foreign concept to the vast majority of them (only other countries use it widely in everyday life) and the military is one of the very few contexts in which they will experience it.
It’s just another term for it. 🤷♂️
Because over here, it's generally only the military that uses 24-hour time and where most people learn it.
Our country is so big and heavily populated (and most of our many, many populated areas are overshadowed by a few really touristy places like New York, the Disney parks and Yellowstone National Park and Hawaii which isn’t even that American) and that you’ll rarely encounter someone from a country that uses the 24 hour system. Canada uses the 12-hour clock if I remember correctly from when I last went there, and I think Mexico does since we usually learn their dialect of Spanish in school (but I’m not sure, in all my spanish classes they taught us to say “son las ocho y media en la noche” for 8:30 PM, instead of “veinte y media horas” as I was taught when I studied in Spain for a semester)
Most countries that use 24h time (Western Europe, ime) use both interchangeably - saying "at 18" or "at six in the evening" are both totally normal.
Just to add to this. I found a map on Wikipedia that shows this.
Nobody says "veinte y media". It's "veinte treinta", and everyone understands that and it's shorter than "ocho y media de la noche", which everyone understands as well. They're completely interchangeable and nobody would find either strange or unusual.
It may be rare to find someone who uses it in regular conversation, but medical, logistics, IT, and military commonly used it... Everyone likely knows a few people that use it.
24h
Military time chart is common because there is less confusion on what time something starts or ends. Why is just because people that use it are usually connected to the military in some way.
Americans are stupid when it comes to converting 24hrs "Militery time" to 1 pm, 2 pm, ext. making them all confused.
Ignorance is not stupidity.
Different places have different cultures and traditions. In the US, 12hr time is standard. 24hr time is used mostly by the military.
There are certainly arguments for why 24hr time is a better system. That doesn't make it stupid to continue to use a slightly inferior system. Most cultures don't try to adapt best practices from around the world.
