I hear phrases like "half-past", "quarter til", and "quarter after" way less often since digital clocks have became more commonplace.
I hear phrases like "half-past", "quarter til", and "quarter after" way less often since digital clocks have became more commonplace.
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Last summer, I was in a water park, one of the few people still wearing a watch. A man asked me what time it was, and I replied "half past one and ten minutes". To me, this was completely natural, and I didn't even think about it. I'll never forget his confused look. You could almost see slight movements under his hair as the wheels in his brain worked overtime to translate it into digital time...
I have never heard anything like that. "twenty 'til two" is what jumps to my mind. I've never heard <some relative time> and x minutes
That's how I was taught. Quarter past, half past, quarter to, and add to it the minutes. Then again, I was also taught to hide under my school desk in case of a nuclear attack. I think times may have changed slightly since then...
half past one and ten minutes can be reduced to half past eleven minutes, which is five and a half minutes
did I get that right?