Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 September 13

= September 13 =

Half past o'clock
I just noticed the line "half past eight o'clock". When and where, obviously in Scotland in 1867, was it common to say half past something o'clock? Was it used in other countries and languages or was it just a Scottish turn of phrase? When did it fall out of use and is it still in use somewhere? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 23:25, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I still say "half past" and "quarter till" all the time myself, I grew up in New Hampshire and it is a very common way to tell the time there. I currently live in North Carolina, and here people are more likely to just read the numbers, like "eight thirty", but no one looks at me funny when I say "half past eight".  -- Jayron  32  01:03, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Here in sunny (yeah right...) England, we are prone to saying "Half Eight" to mean 8:30 - though logically it might mean 4:00. I suspect the OP was asking about the "o'clock" bit though - and "half past eight o'clock" certainly seems an archaic, or at least unconventional, way to say it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:11, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Half past eight o'clock is standard American usage, although the o'clock is usually omitted as understood. Half eight in Germany means 7:30, and I know that the German mode is also used in other European languages. Not sure where to get references for this. μηδείς (talk) 01:26, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Half eight in Hungarian also means 7:30, which is annoying when scheduling my private language students. Also, unrelated but equally confusing, 'he' means 'you', so I never know who the hell they are talking about or when they are going to turn up! :)  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  04:22, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I more than suspect that. It's clear from the header and the question that the "o'clock" part of the expression is what he's interested in.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  01:24, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, again, it's totally normal in the US. I remember being tought it in school, and being surprised it's not spellt "aclock".  I have even heard, and myself said, "what o'clock is it" although that's rare.  People leave it off, just like they say "it's 32 out" to mean it's freezing, rather than "it's 32 degrees Fahrenheit out."  But in no way does it sound funny. I am actually surprised by this question. μηδείς (talk) 01:32, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Aha, looking here http://esl.about.com/library/beginner/bltime.htm I beleieve I see the issue. The source says one only uses o'clock with the full hour.  It is true, I would find "It's eight thirty o'clock" unusual.  But (to me as an American) it's half past eight o'clock" is still normal, as is "It's ten til eight o'clock" and so on.  On the hour I'd say "It's eight o'clock even", or "on the dot". μηδείς (talk) 01:37, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Despite what the source may say, it seems perfectly logical to use it at other times as well, being little more than a contraction of "of the clock", i.e. "at the time when the clock says [thing]". "Half past eight [o'clock]" is thus "half an hour past the time at which the clock says eight". Nothing wrong with that, I think. Something like "eight thirty o'clock" does sound strange, but I can't think of a logical basis for why. dalahäst (let's talk!) 01:43, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that "o'clock" is implicitly "hours o'clock", and "eight thirty hours o'clock" wouldn't make sense in that context. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:51, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * What's idiomatic and what's not is a matter of attestation (and grammatical intuition), not logic. The rule, in the US at least, seems to be "(MM/quarter/half/three quarters) (before/til/after/past) HOUR (o'clock)" is fine, and "HOUR:MINUTES o'clock" is not expected, and would be an asterisked form. μηδείς (talk) 02:14, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I think this is the first time in my life I've ever heard or read anyone saying "it's half past eight o'clock". Which confirms what I already knew, that what's totally normal in one country may be virtually unheard of in another.  But then, I've seen zillions of American and British movies and TV shows in which the time was mentioned, but they never, to the best of my memory, use this form of words, so I dunno what's going on there ... --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  03:47, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Jack, I think you're hearing it as (half past eight) o'clock, but the intent is half past (eight o'clock). That said, I wouldn't use this form either. --Trovatore (talk) 20:58, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * A single use of a phrase does not indicate general use of that phrase. The context of the use possibly indicates that it might have been a less well-educated person trying to over-formalise the description of a simple incident. I am a UK pensioner and cannot recall ever hearing that phrase before. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.183.74 (talk) 07:36, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

19th century English (or older, as we'll see) is bound to sound odd to us, no matter where we live. I see books using "half past eight o'clock" dating from at least the 1770s to the modern day. This Google book search reveals that in the 1820s and 30s, people also used the even more archaic sounding "half past eight of the clock". --Dweller (talk) 09:52, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks everybody. I'm surprised that it is still retained in some places. As Dweller indirectly pointed out people are lazy and contracted "of the clock", so it's easy to understand why the o'clock was then later dropped. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 10:17, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Why do people insist on referring to perfectly normal processes of contraction with the tendentious epithet "lazy"? --ColinFine (talk) 11:20, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Dunno. --Dweller (talk) 11:23, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Will the incredibly lazy editor who last used the words I'm and it's please raise their hand. :)  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  13:35, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * As I said, it's rare that you'll ever hear someone say it's half past eight o'clock--because the o'clock is assumed. (What else would a person realistically be expected to mean by "it's half past eight"?)  But it in no way sounds odd to me.  Indeed, "It is half past eight o'clock young man!" is something I know I have heard addressed to my 7 year old nephew more than once.  I don't even use pronouns in normal speech unless there's ambiguity:  "Wanna go to the beach?"  "Took your stuff outta the dryer."  Get it? μηδείς (talk) 17:06, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Up above you said this expression is "totally normal" in the US. Now you're saying it's "rare". I'm not really following you, I'm afraid.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  20:45, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * No General American speaker I know will object that "half past eight o'clock" sounds at all weird, just as no one will object that "It's 32 degrees Fahrenheit outside the house" sounds weird, yet you will rarely hear someone bother to say the whole thing in either case, since the o'clock or the degrees Fahrenheit...(-side the house) will be understood as assumed. I am certain that this was explained clearly enough above; I hope you are not trying to play gotcha.  What would actually interest me would be to know whether the grammatical intuitions (as defined above) of Antipodeans and other Americans would gibe with this or not. μηδείς (talk) 22:08, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Please assume good faith. I don't play those sorts of games.  If someone says they don't understand, it's a bit rich to retort with "I am certain that this was explained clearly enough above".  Clearly, it wasn't.  Now, it has been.  Thank you.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  22:56, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I did twice before say ommitted above, as "assumed" and as "understood" so you will have to assume good faith in my surprise at having to say the same thing a third time. In any case, I am happy all is understood now.  And still wonder whether this would throw an antipodean for a loop if he heard it. μηδείς (talk) 23:12, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Re your question, and also to respond to Trovatore's comment: In Australia, when we say the time in the traditional way, it's a choice of:
 * 8 o'clock
 * 5, 10, a quarter (never 15), 20, or 25 past 8; intervening minutes like 13 usually become "13 minutes past 8", but it might be just "13 past 8"
 * half (never 30) past 8 (and never "half to 9")
 * 25, 20, a quarter (never 15), 10 or 5 to 9; intervening minutes are more likely to be "17 to 9" rather than "17 minutes to 9" (the reverse of the first half of the hour; I never realised that till just now)
 * The only time the word "o'clock" is ever mentioned is when it's the exact hour.
 * Using the digital version, the exact hour is still "8 o'clock", but any other time is "8 X", where X = "oh 1" through "oh 9", or 10 through 59. --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  23:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Which is how it's done in the UK - we be of one blood thou and I.

Just for fun, I googled "half past eight o'clock" and found that the exact phrase is found in Lord Byron's poem The Shipwreck of 1819, and Thomas Hardy's Desperate Remedies of 1871 (my PC couldn't find the link that Google provided). It also appears in a newspaper report of a riot in North Carolina in 1898 and an Australian obituary in 1909. Much more surprisingly, in Hansard (the official record of the British Parliament) for July 2012; in amending Standing Orders we have "Leave out ‘one o’clock and half past three o’clock in the afternoon on Mondays or’ and insert ‘five minutes to one o’clock and two o’clock in the afternoon on Mondays, between the hours of one o’clock and half past three o’clock in the afternoon on’." So it would seem to be still current in very formal usage. In case you are thinking that this only applies to the crazy Brits, I refer you to exhibit B, the proceedings of the Canadian Parliament for Wednesday, February 4th, 1959 which commenced at "HALF-PAST EIGHT O'CLOCK P.M.". Alansplodge (talk) 01:28, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * And finally; from www.ehow.com (that WP does not allow me to link to) "How to Word Wedding Invitations Properly" written by a rather stern sounding American lady called Angela LaFollette, we have "If the wedding is taking place on Saturday, July 5, 2009, at 8:30 p.m., write it out as Saturday the fifth of July, two thousand and nine, at half past eight o'clock in the evening. Only capitalize proper nouns in an invitation. Do not capitalize the first letter of a line unless it is a proper noun." There you have it. Alansplodge (talk) 01:50, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Slightly off topic maybe, but continuing the “half-past o’clock” theme; as a child it was common for people of my parent’s generation to describe “4:25” as “five and twenty past four” and more formally, “five and twenty past four o’clock”. Equally, “4:35” would be described as “five and twenty to five”. Indeed, my 90 year old aunt still describes 25 minutes this way. This from the midlands area of the UK (Staffordshire to be exact).CoeurDeHamster (talk) 06:10, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Hint: the secret to getting around giving blocked "spamlinks" like to ehow is to link to the results of a google search which shows the desired link as its first hit. For example. μηδείς (talk) 18:42, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanking you kindly sir. Alansplodge (talk) 22:22, 15 September 2012 (UTC)