It seems logical to me that, in the future, when someone is asked the time, they'll be less likely to say things like "quarter to six" or "twenty after nine." Instead, they'll just say "five forty-five" or "nine twenty."
After all, it makes sense that when someone is wearing an analog clock on their wrist, they'd define the time as, for instance, "quarter past." The presence of the hands on the clock, as opposed to numbers themselves, makes determining the time in relation to the top of the hour the easiest thing. Picking out the hour itself takes a second longer, since the brain has to convert the location of a point on the circle to a numerical value.
But fewer people I know are actually wearing wristwatches anymore. Everyone just tells time by pulling out their cellphones. When the digital cell phone's display reads "6:15," what that tells your brain is: "Six fifteen." It takes an extra second to think, "Okay, so that's a quarter past six." Not to mention the extra second it takes the person being told the time to think: "A quarter past six? Okay, six fifteen."
Does this make sense?
I rock an analog wristwatch because I love time and it's classy as hell. However, it only has twelve tick marks, so, technically, telling the difference between, say, 12:12 and 12:13 is impossible. Such precision is hardly required, except for when taking public transit in cities where public transit is exactly on time. Which only exists in Tokyo.
ReplyDeleteI probably checking the time more often on my cell, though, since it doesn't require any mental math.
I've always hated those analog watches with no tick marks whatsoever. Show me someone who can tell time on one of those and I'll eat my hat. (Good thing I don't own any hats.) It's just some style bullshit with no utility.
Yeah, I didn't express it well, but the lack of true specificity with the analog clock is another reason why you'd avoid saying the exact time while using one. Still, I feel like even if it's right on the "0:15" mark, for instance, you'd say "quarter past" most of the time.
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