Do you automatically know how to convert the time to military hours?

[GoldenHours]

At work we always have to refer to military time/a 24 hour clock. I often see people having to count with their fingers to what the time is (e.g. counting that 8pm is 20:00). Similarly, with months I see people having to count with their fingers what number month it is when writing the date (e.g. counting to see that August is the 8th month).

Do you know the time in 24 hours and the number of the months off-by-heart or do you have to count it?

I have no problem with the 24 hour clock and tend to use it (especially in writing) more often than AM or PM. I don't use the 'hundred hours' phrasing though, because I do associate that with the American military and it would just feel weird to say it.

I'm another one who has to scramble for random words if I need to clarify something I'm spelling out, though!

What about the International Phonetic Alphabet? I wish I could understand that, but the only symbols I ever remember are ə and ʃ

You must work with some real thickos

I know the 24 hour clock, since primary. Have never heard it referred to as military.
I used to work in a place were people struggled with the 24 hour clock and when I was sending out anything with times on it, I would put the pm on it instead of using 24 hour timings. I think a high percentage of them had dyslexia (for some reason) so not sure if that is related.

How are you with the NATO alphabet OP?! This is something I also have memorized from working in Aviation

We were taught the 24 hr clock in primary school, along with the freshly minted decimal money and metric weights and measures.

I work with Americans in various states and French so scheduling meetings can be fun. (Even better if the bloke in Bangalore needs to be on the call...) . The one thing that's surprisingly difficult is figuring out who needs to change by an hour in which direction when we change to and from daylight savings a couple of weeks apart.

Yes I know both off by heart, v easily. I work in pharma. So I write the time and date about 20 million times a day!!

I have never heard of it called ‘military time’ before, BUT the first time I ever encountered it was watching MAS*H and it confused the hell out of me!

As an adult, I know it automatically, but wasn’t explicitly taught it, so if you weren’t explicitly taught it, and have had no need for it in your life, why would you know it automatically?

Are you in the UK?
I have an American friend who struggles with the 24hr clock, and she said they usually only use am/pm. I'm unsure if that's just in the area she grew up in or the whole USA.

We were taught the 24 hr clock in primary school, along with the freshly minted decimal money and metric weights and measures.

I don't remember ever being taught the 24 hour clock - it was just 'there'. I started school in 1979 so decimal currency and metric measures were in theory the norm by then, but I still think in imperial for weights and measures - I suppose because my parents did, so I was taught to cook in ounces and so on.

Younger people often refer to their weight in kg but I can never remember my own weight in kg - I know it to the 1/4 lb in imperial, though. Same goes for height - but I've never heard anyone of any age express their height in metric measurements.

weight in kg totally foxes me. I always have to google a conversion to stones to know what it means.

same with height in centimetres

For some reason, I really romanticise imperial currency - perhaps because it was the language of so many jumble-sale childhood books. I regret that I missed out on it. My husband is 60 so old enough to remember the changeover and I often get him to talk about 'shillings' and so on (the long winter evenings must just fly by ... ). But his account of the changeover tallies with the general one - that people adapted very quickly. I was interested to learn that 'p' (as in 10p) was a popular invention and the government had intended the public to call the new coins 'new pence'.

Whereas weight in stones / pounds is meaningless to me.

@Classica

same with height in centimetres

Yes, I always have to google a conversion if I'm buying clothes online and the measurements are in cm. My 'vital statistics' are only meaningful in inches.

I can add or subtract 12 quite easily. The post times on MN are in the 24 hour clock, my computer clock is 24 hours, I would have thought that most electronics are in the 24 hour format.

@LimeRedBanana

Whereas weight in stones / pounds is meaningless to me.

Is this an age/location thing or do you just prefer metrics?

I must admit all ease of use is on the side of metrics and I'd never think of numbers in any other context in anything other than base 10!

@slashlover

I can add or subtract 12 quite easily. The post times on MN are in the 24 hour clock, my computer clock is 24 hours, I would have thought that most electronics are in the 24 hour format.

I don't think I even have to 'convert' with the 24 hour clock. 13:00 is round about the later end of lunch time, 17:00 is finishing work time, etc. etc. - I have the same intangible sense of time as I would when thinking in the 12 hour clock.

The whole units thing in the UK is v confusing I'm sure to those not used to it! We adopted the metric system for some things but not others and for some we use both...

Not that the time thing is that but made me think of it

Different situations will use

Miles or kilometres, ditto feet metres. I think the cm is used more than the inch. Maths and science are all in metric cos mad not to. Pints are pints are pints.

Kg/ lb. Grams. Grams Vs ounces. Again situation dependent.

We have a right Mish mash that we get because we live here. But to outsiders it must be utterly confusing!

Let's go out for a pint. By the way have you seen the price of petrol! Xxp per litre...

@slashlover

I can add or subtract 12 quite easily. The post times on MN are in the 24 hour clock, my computer clock is 24 hours, I would have thought that most electronics are in the 24 hour format.

You can change them according to preference.

Know both without thinking, but I do work in a job where I'm constantly writing it down l.

@LimeRedBanana

Whereas weight in stones / pounds is meaningless to me.

I'm the other way!

Weight and height it's stone feet I totally know and no feel for kg when it comes to humans at all. Height I am a little better. Or not.

I suppose the acid test of all of this is whether you Google a converter.

The weirdest and most annoying for me is that temperature I know and get as it were hot in farenheit and cold in Celsius.

And I just found out why!
www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/dec/29/newspapers-run-hot-and-cold-over-celsius-and-fahrenheit

I'm sure as well the news when I was a child made the switch. And they had both on the weather for a while

We have a right Mish mash that we get because we live here. But to outsiders it must be utterly confusing!

Yes, it would be interesting to know what metric/imperial anomalies exist in other countries. I have the (very possibly incorrect) impression that the USA is even more 'imperial' than we are, whereas continental Europe is firmly metric.

Harking back to Orwell again, he had someone in a pub in '1984' moaning that a half-litre of beer wasn't enough but a litre was too much - I find it interesting that in the 1940s a 100% metric future was seen as a given (or possibly a symbol of oppression). I suppose most alcohol is sold in metric volumes, it's just the pint of beer and associated measures that remain imperial.

My banana muffin recipe has a mix of ounces, millilitres and cup measures.

(The unit of length I use by far the most is the ängstrom.)

Remember this? (Don't worry unmanned).

'However, on September 23, 1999, communication with the spacecraft was permanently lost as it went into orbital insertion. The spacecraft encountered Mars on a trajectory that brought it too close to the planet, and it was either destroyed in the atmosphere or escaped the planet's vicinity and entered an orbit around the Sun.[2] An investigation attributed the failure to a measurement mismatch between two software systems: metric units by NASA and US Customary (imperial or "English") units by spacecraft builder Lockheed Martin.[3]'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

I cannot begin to get my head round doing physics/ maths in imperial.

Just... How?!