Re: Clockwise without clocks

On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 11:36:17 +0100, Joe <joe@...> wrote:

>Carsten Becker wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:13:26 +0200, Carsten Becker
>><naranoieati@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I'd answer e.g. "Just half
>>>past ten ago" and would hear from another corner of the
>>>classroom "No, he's wrong, it's nine-thirty-two".
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Of course I'd be wrong! That should have been "half past nine"! German is so
>>stupid by parsing "half ten" as "half past nine", or rather "half *to* ten".
>>
>>
>
>Well, I'd rather say English is stupid for doing it the other way round,
>since every other Germanic language has 'half ten' meaning 'half past
>nine'.
>
>Also, Estonian (my current obsession) has an even more interesting
>system.  In Estonian, 'quarter past nine' by 'veerand kümme' - literally
>'a quarter of ten'.  Similarly, 'pool kümme'(half of ten) and
>'kolmveerand kümme' (three quarters of ten) are 'half past nine' and
>'quarter to ten', respectively.
So it is in German: _Viertel Zehn_ 'a quarter past nine' (literally: quarter
ten), _halb Zehn_, _dreiviertel Zehn_ 'a quarter to ten' (literally:
three-quarters ten_. It makes sense when you keep in mind how the chime (is
this the word) of the bells: At a quarter past nine, it's one time, at half
past nine, it's two times, at a quarter to ten, three times, at ten o'clock,
four times: a quarter, a half, three quarters, and the entire hour.

Only _halb Zehn_ is used in the whole German-speaking area, and _Viertel
Zehn_ is least used. In Switzerland, most won't understand either _Viertel
Zehn_ or _Dreiviertel Zehn_ at all.

kry@s:
j. 'mach' wust

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