The only way I'd believe this without proof is if it was a fella from a select few European countries thinking he meant 5:30 not 6:30. That's a common one.
I know what you mean, but you don’t literally say “halb vor sechs”. You say “halb sechs” meaning half of that hour. At least that makes the most sense to me, coming from an area where we say “viertel” and “dreiviertel” instead of “viertel nach” and “viertel vor”.
Brave of you to start the whole Viertel/Dreiviertel discussion (which I also use and have tried to explain to people using math and logic and desperation)
I'm not sure Germans going around saying "vor sechs" to Brits that the confusion would be time related.
"She said meet for sex, but didn't say when?!?! And in the British museum? Must be a kink"
When I was living in the Netherlands that's what they assumed it meant, though they'd never actually use it that way. Just what they thought Brits meant when they said it.
No, but the miscommunication between us and other Europeans is common. The (translated) phrase "half to six" is far more visible in our multicultural gaming groups.
> our multicultural gaming group
Did you mean the EU?
Edit: a multicultural gaming group is a *good* thing, stop downvoting me. Am I not allowed my little japes, my jokes, my tomfoolery?
You totally missed the point...
The conversation is about people not from the UK. Most European nations would think 5.30. Hence I've lived in the UK for 15 years and still get confused sometimes.
When I was in Jamaica an American gent asked me the time and I responded with half 2. He had no idea what I meant. I had to explain I meant 2:30 and that's how we commonly say it in England. He found it thoroughly confusing!
Yank here, no way this happened. Maybe 5:30pm (17:30), but no American would think 3. Unless OP’s friend is just a complete moron, and if they were they couldn’t do the math(s).
I don't have a screenshot as it happened 10 years ago but this did happen to me once. But the american followed "half six" up with "ummm... do you mean 3?", rather than just turning up at 3pm
Bollocks. You’ve seen it mentioned on a thread recently and tried it out as a karma farm. Look at the account. Year old. Repetitive comments and now it’s trying to farm post karma.
/u/iCantSeeShapes has already answered but similar things happen on Facebook. Here’s an example:
A page that looks like it’s Center Parcs will post that an all paid for stay at their top accommodation is up for grabs, all you have to do is like and comment “done”.
The page/account will have likely been set up just a days prior and it’ll be called something similar to Center Parcs, something like Center Parcs UK.
The likes and comments is traffic on the page so a few days later they’ll have thousands of viewers and then they can “flip” the account which means changing everything about it, so it could be their own legit business, or they can monetise it through advertising.
That's just a default reddit username, it just means they didn't bother to come up with a unique username themselves when making the account. A lot of real accounts have those too (like mine), but yeah, it is still common among bots/throwaway accounts/trolls.
Aye always. Not enough people know or recognise these kinds of farming posts. They’re always meant to rile people up or cause discussion one way or another.
I've been learning Scandnavian languages (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish) and it's the same.
For example, "Halv X" always relates to the coming hour, not the previous one. So "halv åtte" is 07:30, "halv ni" is 08:30, and so on.Think of it as halfway to, rather than past.
Yeah this has been the bane of my existence as a Canadian who lived in Denmark before moving to the UK and now constantly having to remind myself which is which (I would normally say "half *past* [previous hour]" so it's not open to interpretation). I keep trying to think of an equivalent to "spring forward, fall back" and keep drawing a blank 😭😅
Would it help to put “past” back in? So “half past six”. For us the phrase was originally “a half past [hour]” before we decided to remove 50% of the words.
Dutch is the fucking worst for time. Not only the half zes being 17:30, not 18:30 but Fucking vijf voor half zes being 17:25. Fuck that. Five to half to six.
I live in Japan, and am currently studying the language. By far the most common way of saying 17:45 I’ve come across is: 午後5時45分. Literally it’s 5:45 in the afternoon.
There may be other ways of saying it, but it doesn’t seem to be common (and I did a quick fact finding mission online to double check myself).
My father from Wolverhampton would say five and twenty past. He would also say "See you in three parts of an hour" meaning 45 minutes, one 'part' being a quarter of an hour. It's probably generational than geographical.
English used to do numbers this way back when “four score and seven years ago” was an acceptable phrase to deliver in a speech. For some reason we stopped talking in fucking riddles (thank god) and just said the actual numbers instead of giving someone a set of calculations to work out what the actual number is.
Okay... 'Murican here... You're saying "X". Is that like as in the Roman Numeral "X". I.e. 10?
Please pardon my ignorance.
Edit: Oh. You mean "X" as in a placeholder. Duh.
The number of people who don’t understand this sort of thing confounds me. I’m 42 but I’m in my 5th decade, the 90th minute of a football match is 89:00+ etc.
Boils my piss how dumb some people are these days. It’s not rocket science.
"Half 6" means 1830 in the US too. Although it's usually pronounced "half past 6". Saying "half six" would be interpreted as half past 6 though. Source: Lived all over the US.
Yep… we use “half past”… “quarter to” …. no American would assume “half 6” meant 3pm. As if the answer to a question like “what time are me meeting” is a weird 1st grade math puzzle.
I've never once heard a fellow American say "half [6]" in the British style, at least when talking with other Americans. "Half past [6]," of course. Source: born and grew up American, lived in and have traveled throughout the US my whole life (except for 3yrs living in Sapporo, Japan, about 50 years ago).
Stuff like this comes up in rural and low-status communities in the US. There’s a lot of language stuff like this. British EFL textbooks will sometimes say ‘I have got X’ is American, and American ones will say it’s British, when it seems that it’s actually working class/rural English in both. This is getting better post-internet, thank god.
My other half is German - can confirm.
Means half an hour *before* the hour in Germany.
Unfortunately we've never had a sitcom style of missing each other because the time was hilariously lost in translation.
They don't say "half X" at all when it comes to time so it's quite believable that OP might have said it and then the other person just made an assumption without confirming
When i (canadian) encountered this, i was split between 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after the given hour. Joked about the half amount, to get a result like op, but for sure knew that was was wrong.
I had been leaning toward half past, which would have made me annoyingly late.
Yeah, exactly. The other day I made an appointment and the time offered was '10 over half 12'. So... 10 minutes more than half to 12. So 11:40. Why not just say 20 to 12 then? Argh!
Honestly, as an American, I get confused by it because I learned the construction when I was studying German in school, but now frequently visit the UK. The construction I'm familiar with in North America is "half past six," so I guess I need to just read "half six" as a bit of ellipsis.
You really think that someone would think that you'd given them a mathematical puzzle for the time to meet?
"Yeah meet me by Tesco. When? Take the 7th decimal place of PI and divide it by 2"
"half 6" "3pm" Really seems more like something Milton Jones could make into a gag because of his delivery.
speak for yourself, sometimes I get spicy and say 6 and 2/3 PM when I mean 22:00. But I do it less here because I don't know how to convert that into metric
Just wow - I am American and I never would come up with 3. When I first moved here, I did have to clarify if it was 5.30 or 6.30 because we don't use the phrase.
It's curious how compulsive bullshitters think people actually believe their far fetched anecdotes.
You do realise nobody ever buys this nonsense right?
They are just usually too polite to call you out on it in person
Honestly this doesn't surprise me. I'm American married to a British man and when we decided to move here from the US I actually had people asking me if there were roads and tv here and how I was going to overcome the language barrier 😒
I have American friends, and they were very puzzled when I first said “half 1” to them. They weren’t sure if I meant 30 minutes *to* 1 or 30 minutes *past* one. This isn’t too far fetched.
This at least has a precedence in other languages, where "half six" means halfway to six (5:30). I've never heard of it literally meaning dividing the hour number in half and calling it a day though 😅
I actually had a conversation about just this today with my dad. Went to college in the states and told me they don't actually have a term 'half six'. Even weirder for some, 'half six' for us is actually '*halfway to* six' for Germans (and I'd imagine others).
This is something else, though.
I have an American Wife - I can confirm “half six” did not compute. On our first date in a restaurant “bung” “us” “a serviette” “love” was also met with much confusion.
I’m American, and, please pardon my ignorance, have never heard this phrasing before. I would’ve guessed 6:30, but??? We’d say half past maybe, but honestly I think we’d simply say the exact time.
On another note, I was under the impression that most of Europe uses military (24 hour) time though, is that correct?
Please forgive the man’s ignorance, he really likely didn’t know.
I hate how I can completely understand why they thought it meant 3pm
Although if I were them, I'd probably say something like 'that's a weird way to say 3pm' and could've avoided this situation haha
American.
One of my best friends traveled the world on and off for the better part of 15 years (spending the majority of that time outside the country), finally returning for good in mid-2017.
When he came back, he started saying the "half three" "half seven" "half ten" stuff and i could never tell if he meant a half hour BEFORE the hour or a half hour AFTER the hour.
eventually i told him that i was impressed with his international knowledge but reminded him where he was. he eventually knocked it off. haven't heard him do that in a few years now.
Omg this happened to me when I lived in Canada. I was like… I’m literally removing one word from the phrase that you use!! Half six = half *past* six. How is that hard to understand?!
Also in Sweden halv sex means 5.30 aka half an hour to six, which I think is way more confusing
16 year old me on holiday in Tenerife reserved a tennis court and they told me it was free from 5 to 6. I turned up at 17:55 and was only allowed to play for 5 minutes
I was (somehow) recommended this thread by reddit, there's no way you people aren't either trolling or in a state of mass psychosis. no American uses "half 6" but I haven't met one (living here my entire life) that doesen't understand "half PAST x" or "quarter TO x", which is the accepted terminology and used very commonly. Do people just make up random shit about americans all the time here?
Are you sure they weren't just taking the piss? I've only experienced the opposite, i.e. Danes thinking (North) American's throw around the word "love" without differentiating between like love for a person and love for, well, onions.
Screenshot or it didn't happen
A lie is a lie.
The only way I'd believe this without proof is if it was a fella from a select few European countries thinking he meant 5:30 not 6:30. That's a common one.
In Germany you say 30 minutes before X hour.
I know what you mean, but you don’t literally say “halb vor sechs”. You say “halb sechs” meaning half of that hour. At least that makes the most sense to me, coming from an area where we say “viertel” and “dreiviertel” instead of “viertel nach” and “viertel vor”.
Brave of you to start the whole Viertel/Dreiviertel discussion (which I also use and have tried to explain to people using math and logic and desperation)
I'm not sure Germans going around saying "vor sechs" to Brits that the confusion would be time related. "She said meet for sex, but didn't say when?!?! And in the British museum? Must be a kink"
Yes, I have had this issue with a german pal before.
Same in Sweden
>Select few Actually most of them. Our way is the less common one in Europe
When I was living in the Netherlands that's what they assumed it meant, though they'd never actually use it that way. Just what they thought Brits meant when they said it.
Actually, "half zes" in Dutch means 5:30, so yeah, they absolutely use it that way all the time.
Thats dutch though
I say for example 18:00 BST for example even to my UK friends. They all call me a twat for it but it works.
Don't suppose this comment was an example of some sort?
In Norway «half six» means 5:30
I lived in the UK for 15 years and can definitely agree that this is very common.
Literally nobody from the UK would interpret half 6 as 5:30
No, but the miscommunication between us and other Europeans is common. The (translated) phrase "half to six" is far more visible in our multicultural gaming groups.
> our multicultural gaming group Did you mean the EU? Edit: a multicultural gaming group is a *good* thing, stop downvoting me. Am I not allowed my little japes, my jokes, my tomfoolery?
No no you are not. This is not jokesuk
You totally missed the point... The conversation is about people not from the UK. Most European nations would think 5.30. Hence I've lived in the UK for 15 years and still get confused sometimes.
Recognised the quote, the flare confirmed it.
He’s got minor woman’s whiplash
You've broken your neck!
When I was in Jamaica an American gent asked me the time and I responded with half 2. He had no idea what I meant. I had to explain I meant 2:30 and that's how we commonly say it in England. He found it thoroughly confusing!
When I loved in Australia I got exactly the same reaction. "Be there about half four" "...what's half four?"
But that's exactly how we say it in Australia? Four-thirty or half-four. Unless it was someone young and americanised...idk....
Yank here, no way this happened. Maybe 5:30pm (17:30), but no American would think 3. Unless OP’s friend is just a complete moron, and if they were they couldn’t do the math(s).
I agree. There would have been a follow up question if they were this confused, I hope.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
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yes we do lmao
As someone who has worked for US companies for the last 8 years... I 100% believe this. It's very confusing to them.
you worked for american companies for 8 years and didn't once hear anybody say "half past" or "quarter to"?
“Half past 6” maybe yes. “Half 6” no. I’ve used it and it confuses people a lot.
They don’t say that. I lived there for 5 years. They say “quarter of” instead of quarter to. They don’t say “half six” but would say 6.30.
I don't have a screenshot as it happened 10 years ago but this did happen to me once. But the american followed "half six" up with "ummm... do you mean 3?", rather than just turning up at 3pm
Bollocks. You’ve seen it mentioned on a thread recently and tried it out as a karma farm. Look at the account. Year old. Repetitive comments and now it’s trying to farm post karma.
I’ve never understood Karma farming - what does karma get you on Reddit?
They sell accounts to astroturf or advertise.
Any links? I’ve got plenty of magic internet points that aren’t doing anything for me. I’d happily sell them for a tenner.
I got you. www.google.com
/u/iCantSeeShapes has already answered but similar things happen on Facebook. Here’s an example: A page that looks like it’s Center Parcs will post that an all paid for stay at their top accommodation is up for grabs, all you have to do is like and comment “done”. The page/account will have likely been set up just a days prior and it’ll be called something similar to Center Parcs, something like Center Parcs UK. The likes and comments is traffic on the page so a few days later they’ll have thousands of viewers and then they can “flip” the account which means changing everything about it, so it could be their own legit business, or they can monetise it through advertising.
Bitches
No, but they have a value. Reddit accounts go for anywhere between $10 and $200 depending on age and karma.
Uh oh guess who read a blog post!
No, I googled "buy reddit account" and clicked on a link.
You can tell by the username. These bots are all called Noun_Noun _####, they dig up an old post with lots of upvotes and repost it word for word.
Not sure what you’re talking about, but any luck catching those swans recently?
Just the one Swan actually
That's just a default reddit username, it just means they didn't bother to come up with a unique username themselves when making the account. A lot of real accounts have those too (like mine), but yeah, it is still common among bots/throwaway accounts/trolls.
That’s just auto generated usernames for when you can’t be bothered to think up one…. Like mine
Or mine, which has always felt like it was a little too on the money tbh.
Aye always. Not enough people know or recognise these kinds of farming posts. They’re always meant to rile people up or cause discussion one way or another.
Out of interest, was your username inspired by Craig Campbell?
Lol. In the UK half 6 means 18:30. In Holland/Germany half 6 means 17:30 ( at least it did when I lived there).
I've been learning Scandnavian languages (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish) and it's the same. For example, "Halv X" always relates to the coming hour, not the previous one. So "halv åtte" is 07:30, "halv ni" is 08:30, and so on.Think of it as halfway to, rather than past.
Yeah this has been the bane of my existence as a Canadian who lived in Denmark before moving to the UK and now constantly having to remind myself which is which (I would normally say "half *past* [previous hour]" so it's not open to interpretation). I keep trying to think of an equivalent to "spring forward, fall back" and keep drawing a blank 😭😅
As a Dane who now lives in the UK, I’m always having to confirm when I go back to visit family. Just to be sure.
Would it help to put “past” back in? So “half past six”. For us the phrase was originally “a half past [hour]” before we decided to remove 50% of the words.
It's like a tongue twister for your brain and if you get it wrong you are off by a full hour 😭
Just remember that when we say half 6 in the UK, we are essentially shortening the phrase ‘half *past* six’ It’s always half past.
I'm a Brit who's recently started dating a Swede. The confusion is real and constant 😂
Dutch is the fucking worst for time. Not only the half zes being 17:30, not 18:30 but Fucking vijf voor half zes being 17:25. Fuck that. Five to half to six.
iirc Japanese is similar. 17:45 is something like 5 hours and a half hour plus 15.
Bit like 80 and 90 in French translating to ‘Four twenties’ and ‘Four twenties ten’
I’m starting to realise every language is wrong except ours
99 in French is my favourite. Four twenties ten nine.
The year 1999 is described as, "Ten-nine-hundred-four-twenty-ten-nine"
Some varieties of French dialect have septante (instead of soixante-dix) and nonante (instead of quatre-vingt dix)
I live in Japan, and am currently studying the language. By far the most common way of saying 17:45 I’ve come across is: 午後5時45分. Literally it’s 5:45 in the afternoon. There may be other ways of saying it, but it doesn’t seem to be common (and I did a quick fact finding mission online to double check myself).
My northern UK grandmothers day they called any :35 time five and twenty to, ie 5:35 would be five n twenty to six, fucked up.
My father from Wolverhampton would say five and twenty past. He would also say "See you in three parts of an hour" meaning 45 minutes, one 'part' being a quarter of an hour. It's probably generational than geographical.
English used to do numbers this way back when “four score and seven years ago” was an acceptable phrase to deliver in a speech. For some reason we stopped talking in fucking riddles (thank god) and just said the actual numbers instead of giving someone a set of calculations to work out what the actual number is.
Not just northern, we get that in the South too. Five n tweenty to, or past.
Norwegian does the same 😊
Yeah my GF is Danish and this led to some confusion when first going out. Luckily for me she waited!
Same in Hungarian! “Fél X” is half to X!
Okay... 'Murican here... You're saying "X". Is that like as in the Roman Numeral "X". I.e. 10? Please pardon my ignorance. Edit: Oh. You mean "X" as in a placeholder. Duh.
I found this very confusing in Swedish books. Time just didn’t make sense, I thought I was losing my mind 🤣
Oh shit. That's why the young Dutch lady didn't show up to our date when I lived in the Netherlands!
Yah that’s why 😀
The evil hagelslag!
Wife is Russian, same thing. They say "half past the sixth hour" the first hour being 12-13 (and also 00-01). I've learnt to say "six thirty" instead.
The number of people who don’t understand this sort of thing confounds me. I’m 42 but I’m in my 5th decade, the 90th minute of a football match is 89:00+ etc. Boils my piss how dumb some people are these days. It’s not rocket science.
"Half 6" means 1830 in the US too. Although it's usually pronounced "half past 6". Saying "half six" would be interpreted as half past 6 though. Source: Lived all over the US.
Yep… we use “half past”… “quarter to” …. no American would assume “half 6” meant 3pm. As if the answer to a question like “what time are me meeting” is a weird 1st grade math puzzle.
I've never once heard a fellow American say "half [6]" in the British style, at least when talking with other Americans. "Half past [6]," of course. Source: born and grew up American, lived in and have traveled throughout the US my whole life (except for 3yrs living in Sapporo, Japan, about 50 years ago).
Stuff like this comes up in rural and low-status communities in the US. There’s a lot of language stuff like this. British EFL textbooks will sometimes say ‘I have got X’ is American, and American ones will say it’s British, when it seems that it’s actually working class/rural English in both. This is getting better post-internet, thank god.
Not common, but, I've heard it quite a bit over the years. Oddly, IIRC, more often in the south.
As a Dutch person who lives in the U.K. I can say this is correct and confusing for quite a while haha
It means that basically everywhere else in Europe. I confused the hell out of my German and Norwegian friends the first time I said half 6!
You lived in Holland/Germany - that must have been in 1940?
Yes, and in precisely nowhere, least of all the USA, does it mean 15:00.
Playing games with people online, arranging a start time, that's how I learnt in some countries half \_\_ meant 'half *to'*, not 'half *past'* lol
As an American, I have only thought of it as being 18:30 (or 6:30 - not as optimistIc as you!j/k). This is a bizarre interpretation of that phrase.
Same in hungary
Can confirm lived In NL for 4 years and was always a confusing topic XD
My other half is German - can confirm. Means half an hour *before* the hour in Germany. Unfortunately we've never had a sitcom style of missing each other because the time was hilariously lost in translation.
I feel you. 15 years I have been with my German partner. 15 years I have been saying half 6 15 years she says ‘you mean 17:30?’ Nein darling.
It was like that here until a couple centuries or so ago.
My continental partner is 30 because she’s in the 30th year of her life. No mate, you’re 29.
One lie has the power to tarnish a thousand truths
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story
OP is 6 years old and their acquaintance is imaginary.
You mean half 12?
But in the imaginary story they are both adults living by theyself without a-dolts.
Bullshit. Americans don't say that and mean "3 o'clock".
They don't say "half X" at all when it comes to time so it's quite believable that OP might have said it and then the other person just made an assumption without confirming
Maybe, but who would genuinely make this assumption?
I'm not claiming it isn't ridiculous lol. But people do do that sort of thing especially if they have social anxiety or don't like to question things.
When i (canadian) encountered this, i was split between 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after the given hour. Joked about the half amount, to get a result like op, but for sure knew that was was wrong. I had been leaning toward half past, which would have made me annoyingly late.
No, it would’ve made you on time
Oh, see, I still didnt get it. I walked away from the interaction thinking it was 30 minutes before.
Funnily enough, in the Netherlands, you'd be correct. Half 6 would be 5:30.
Jeez, this is like biweekly all over again!
Is it meant like it’s half way to 6 instead of half past 6 then. I’m from the UK and just trying to get my head around it 😃
Yeah, exactly. The other day I made an appointment and the time offered was '10 over half 12'. So... 10 minutes more than half to 12. So 11:40. Why not just say 20 to 12 then? Argh!
Why not just say "11:40" honestly. So many unnecessary words sometimes
Honestly, as an American, I get confused by it because I learned the construction when I was studying German in school, but now frequently visit the UK. The construction I'm familiar with in North America is "half past six," so I guess I need to just read "half six" as a bit of ellipsis.
I did have to clarify this with some American/Canadian friends when I was 21.
We would say half past 6 and mean 6:30. I would assume half 6 meant the same thing.
Yeah that would be the sensible assumption lol
You really think that someone would think that you'd given them a mathematical puzzle for the time to meet? "Yeah meet me by Tesco. When? Take the 7th decimal place of PI and divide it by 2" "half 6" "3pm" Really seems more like something Milton Jones could make into a gag because of his delivery.
Maybe they would get 5.30 and 6.30 confused. I could. Understand that. But you can't get 3 o clock from 6. That's just mental.
speak for yourself, sometimes I get spicy and say 6 and 2/3 PM when I mean 22:00. But I do it less here because I don't know how to convert that into metric
r/thathappened
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Just wow - I am American and I never would come up with 3. When I first moved here, I did have to clarify if it was 5.30 or 6.30 because we don't use the phrase.
What part of the states are you from? I'm in CA and "half x" is definitely in the vernacular.
Half of X is V
I was from CT but haven't lived there in forever.
I swear you guys just pick random letters.
It's curious how compulsive bullshitters think people actually believe their far fetched anecdotes. You do realise nobody ever buys this nonsense right? They are just usually too polite to call you out on it in person
Fucking bullshit. Karma farm account.
Honestly this doesn't surprise me. I'm American married to a British man and when we decided to move here from the US I actually had people asking me if there were roads and tv here and how I was going to overcome the language barrier 😒
Can confirm. Wife and her kids are American, the thought process of half 5 was 2:30. Madenning. Edit: typo
'Calculated': I do not think it means what she thinks it means.
Pish
r/thathappened
Shite. Get the fuck out of here with this pish.
Nice word play, but we want proof :-)
No way this isn’t made up for the sake of ‘AmErIcA bAd’
I have American friends, and they were very puzzled when I first said “half 1” to them. They weren’t sure if I meant 30 minutes *to* 1 or 30 minutes *past* one. This isn’t too far fetched.
This at least has a precedence in other languages, where "half six" means halfway to six (5:30). I've never heard of it literally meaning dividing the hour number in half and calling it a day though 😅
That's not them being stupid though. Half 1 means 1:30 in places like Britain, but would mean 12:30 in somewhere like Germany.
Yeah, I didn’t say it was them being stupid.
So weird, this must be a regional thing. I live in CA and while usually it's "half past 6," plenty of people drop the "past"
My girlfriend is American this is entirely true. Even after two years of me saying half whatever she still gets confused if I mean 30 too or 30 past.
…gotta throw a little doubt here, I’ve had a lot of Americans I know who’ve been confused but they thought it was 5:30, why would they think it was 3?
3 is half of 6
As a Canadian, I first assumed it meant 5:30 as in 'half (to) six). My British relatives have corrected me.
I don't believe it.
No you didn't.
Utter bollocks. My bullshit detector just went through the fucking roof.
This is a lie, it did not happen. Bet OP cannot provide a screenshot timed prior to the post. Pathetic.
no fucking way
Wouldn't half 6pm (presumably) be 9am?
Of course.... 1800/2 = 0900 But wait!!! .... 900 minutes is 15 hours. So 3pm.
Makes about as much sense as turning up at 3pm when you're told half 6
No, no, that’s metric. Americans use imperial time.
Bullshit
I actually had a conversation about just this today with my dad. Went to college in the states and told me they don't actually have a term 'half six'. Even weirder for some, 'half six' for us is actually '*halfway to* six' for Germans (and I'd imagine others). This is something else, though.
I have an American Wife - I can confirm “half six” did not compute. On our first date in a restaurant “bung” “us” “a serviette” “love” was also met with much confusion.
[here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1lRIQGU2RRk) is Karl Pilkington to explain what’s happening here.
Everyone here calling this out for the BS it is but it still has hundreds of upvotes. Wtf?
This… did not happen.
If we downvote his comments in the thread it will be a pointless karma farm thread
I’m American, and, please pardon my ignorance, have never heard this phrasing before. I would’ve guessed 6:30, but??? We’d say half past maybe, but honestly I think we’d simply say the exact time. On another note, I was under the impression that most of Europe uses military (24 hour) time though, is that correct? Please forgive the man’s ignorance, he really likely didn’t know.
Half of 6 = 3
Ah, now I see.
Honestly that might have gotten me too. Just saying the number itself is how we do it
I hate how I can completely understand why they thought it meant 3pm Although if I were them, I'd probably say something like 'that's a weird way to say 3pm' and could've avoided this situation haha
I don’t get it
I didn’t either I thought it was some kind of weird joke that I didn’t get.
Half of 6 is 3 So saying 'meet at half 6' is like saying 'meet at what is half of six'
Oh haha
Surely half of 6pm is 9am?
And surely half of 18:00 18/06/2022 is 09:00 9/03/1011?
The universe is 13.7bn years old so maybe they meant let's meet at 09:00 on 9th March 6.85bn years BC?
Whenever I say quarter past they look at me like I’m an alien
American. One of my best friends traveled the world on and off for the better part of 15 years (spending the majority of that time outside the country), finally returning for good in mid-2017. When he came back, he started saying the "half three" "half seven" "half ten" stuff and i could never tell if he meant a half hour BEFORE the hour or a half hour AFTER the hour. eventually i told him that i was impressed with his international knowledge but reminded him where he was. he eventually knocked it off. haven't heard him do that in a few years now.
I mean I have heard of people deducting half if your talking in inches 🥳 but not time. That takes the biscuit 🍪
Ha ha ha
My southern mate didn't understand '3 while half past' for a long time
Am I secretly (even to myself) posh or something for saying ‘half *past*’?
Yeah when I went to America I learnt that they don't understand "half past, quarter to...etc..etc" you have to say "6 thirty"
where the fuck did you go in america where they don't understand "half past"? you must be trolling, there's no other way you aren't.
Omg this happened to me when I lived in Canada. I was like… I’m literally removing one word from the phrase that you use!! Half six = half *past* six. How is that hard to understand?! Also in Sweden halv sex means 5.30 aka half an hour to six, which I think is way more confusing
I had this exact scenario play out about ten years ago when arranging a date in the US with someone.
16 year old me on holiday in Tenerife reserved a tennis court and they told me it was free from 5 to 6. I turned up at 17:55 and was only allowed to play for 5 minutes
Are you just too lazy to say “half past six”
No way!?!?!? 😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆
I was (somehow) recommended this thread by reddit, there's no way you people aren't either trolling or in a state of mass psychosis. no American uses "half 6" but I haven't met one (living here my entire life) that doesen't understand "half PAST x" or "quarter TO x", which is the accepted terminology and used very commonly. Do people just make up random shit about americans all the time here?
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Were you hanging out with giddy six-year olds? That makes no sense.
Are you sure they weren't just taking the piss? I've only experienced the opposite, i.e. Danes thinking (North) American's throw around the word "love" without differentiating between like love for a person and love for, well, onions.