Talk:Date and time notation in the United Kingdom

Speech
The article should say something more about how time is referred to in speech. How is 24 hour time spoken of? Is 9 PM referred to as "twenty-one hours? so then 9:30 PM is "twenty-one hours thirty minutes" or is it "twenty-one-thirty hours" or what then?  I am in the US and the 24 hour clock is never used here for any civilian purpose. We have no convention to speak of it.  I am asking about how civilians speak of the time, not military.

B A Andersen (talk) 21:20, 18 June 2014 (UTC)


 * 21:30 = Half past nine in the evening. Nine-thirty (pm). Military: twenty-one thirty. But 21:00 twenty-one hundred hours. 89.166.184.202 (talk) 14:11, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Scottish formats?
While Scotland remains part of the UK, can someone include information about how time is written in Scotland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.222.56 (talk) 20:57, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

The Scottish formats are included under the 'English' section. Scotland speaks English. The 'Welsh' section refers to the Welsh language. As Scotland does not have its own language, there is no need for a new section. This is the same for Northern Ireland.Sb2001 (talk) 20:36, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Uh, sorry, but Scotland has of its own languages, Scots and Gaelic, both of which should be covered if we're going to cover Welsh.  Should also add Irish, at least in summary, per the UK including Northern Ireland.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:39, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The prevalence of these two languages in Scotland is less obvious than Welsh in Wales (shop signs etc use English and Welsh). Gaelic is barely seen. Irish is seen in the Republic of Ireland, not so sure about NI, though. – Sb2001 talk page 17:35, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Eg / E.g.
Although your user page lists some UK style guides, this point is covered by the Wikipedia style guide at Manual of Style/Abbreviations. Until and unless a discussion at the MOS talk page changes the Wikipedia style guide, you will find that editors turn up at this page from time to time to put the Wikipedia style in place. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:21, 31 March 2017 (UTC) Thank you for this. I have now added a note to the MoS talk page requesting different standards for US and UK. --Sb2001 (talk) 16:20, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Article really was poor
I got to this article via the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, and I am surprised at how poor this version of the article really is. In particular: I'll try to do something about the tone. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:41, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Much of it is unsupported by inline sources, although I know from experience that it's hard to source observations about actual usage, as opposed to instructions in style guides.
 * Its tone is unencyclopaedic, with repeated uses of "you" and instructions.
 * It implies a uniformity that simply doesn't exist. The "MM DD, YYYY" style is still widely used in my experience, especially by older people.
 * I've given it a first pass, but much more work is needed. I would point out that articles should be written in the English Wikipedia's style, so, for example, when a time is being given not as an example of how it might be presented but as an actual time, it should be written with a ":". Peter coxhead (talk) 06:16, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I worked it over a lot, too, to undo a strong "there is a British style and an American style" air about it (such assertions are provably wrong). Added a lot of sources from my style guide collection (could do more, but overkill should be avoided.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:41, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

"Quarter of"
In the U.S., the expression "a quarter of six" means 5:45 (same as the more common expressions "a quarter to six" or "a quarter till six". I came to this topic wondering if this idiom also exists in Britain.  I don't see it mentioned in the discussion of spoken time, but I'm not sure if that's because it's not used in the U.K. or because it just hasn't been addressed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by  ScribeMonk  (talk • contribs) 19:58, 3 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't think I've ever heard this in present-day, natural speech in England in my lifetime (I'm in my 40s). According to this it is used in Scottish and Irish English, but I can't confirm that. Daira Hopwood ⚥ (talk) 12:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

o'clock
Is saying "o'clock" as in "It's eight o'clock" still a thing in modern British or is considered antiquated? Is it even used in writing? 2.203.195.46 (talk) 12:00, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It's still current in spoken and written British English. Headhitter (talk) 21:45, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Meaningful, fixed date and time in the examples
Hi there, I don't understand why it's a good idea to use time in the examples. Apart from the fact that the time of the day is off by two hours compared to BST, for some reason, much of the time it will be an unhelpful value. Especially so (but not only) when the day of the month is the same as the month number (e.g. fourth of April), and the same for hours and minutes (e.g. six minutes past six). To an American reader, the examples would be much clearer if they read the article on 13 May than if they read it the day before, which seems arbitrary.

I propose we use a fixed date with a day greater than 12 (to make it clear which part is the day), and maybe less than 22 (to avoid a clash with what could be perceived as the year for the next few years). For the time, we can use anything pm. Any objections? Thanks. 2.100.104.223 (talk) 06:57, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. Actually, maybe 31/12/1999 (which was already used in much of the article) is a better choice, even more obvious. Let me do that instead. 2.100.104.223 (talk) 06:50, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Responsibility 200.68.173.5 (talk) 03:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

What about elapsed time?
OK, time of day is covered; but what about elapsed time, i.e. duration? How do you write 5 hours, 20 minutes and 13 seconds? Paul Magnussen (talk) 20:24, 5 July 2023 (UTC)