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Re: This day

From:Jean-François Colson <fa597525@...>
Date:Sunday, March 25, 2007, 9:15
Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On 3/24/07, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> wrote: >>>> On 3/23/07, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote: >>>>> ......... But "top" and "bottom of the hour" are quite >>>>> intuitive to me, relating as they do to the minute hand's >>>>> position at the top or bottom of the clock, >>>>> respectively. >> >> I had never heard of or thought of this interpretation until it came >> up on this list. To me, the bottom of an hour is the very end of it. >> I did some searching and found this: [ http://www.bartleby.com/ >> 68/98/6098.html ], which says: >> >> The top of the hour and the bottom of the hour are >> broadcasting and possibly advertising jargon for the beginning and >> end of an hour or >> half hour of broadcasting time; they also mean "on the hour" and "on >> or at the half hour." >> >> This doesn't really seem to clear anything up for me! > > Try this instead: > > http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bottom+of+the+hour > > I don't know who might be the ones using it differently. At least > throughout the US - on radio and television, broadcast, cable, and > satellite - "the bottom of the hour" means half past. And that pretty > darn precisely.
Interesting. Do you also say "the bottom of 2 o'clock" for half past two?

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>