# punctuation for time [colon vs full stop]



## monkeyaug

I wonder if I can use full stop instead of colon when to say time. For example,

I will arrive there at 14.25.( instead of at 14:25) Is it right?


----------



## idialegre

I have never seen a period (or full stop) used in place of a colon.
In addition, if you write, say, 11.10 instead of 11:10, in some places people might even interpret it to mean either November 10th or October 11th.


----------



## Egmont

In English, only a colon. Or, if you use a 24-hour clock, no punctuation at all: just "1110."

There are almost surely languages where the practice is different. People who have those as their first languages may carry over their habits into English. As posted above, this can cause confusion - much as different symbols for the decimal indicator and the thousands separator often do.


----------



## Loob

I don't think it's quite as clear-cut as the previous posters imply.

Here's what _The Times style guide_ says on the subject (my red highlighting):





> *times* never write, eg, 6pm last night, 9am tomorrow morning; say 6  o'clock last night or (if the context allows) 6pm, or 9am tomorrow. *Use a  point in expressing continental time - 01.55, 14.00 etc*.


I think I use a colon more often than a full-stop, but I certainly don't rule out using the latter.


----------



## panjandrum

You may find some examples of . used in time formatting, but it is unusual.
Edit: I was sure I'd seen a guide that recommended . - but I couldn't find it 
The normal form is to use a colon - that's the ISO standard too.

I wouldn't use nothing.


(International Standards Organisation)


----------



## Loob

panjandrum said:


> I wouldn't use nothing.


I used to use no punctuation back in the days when I was working with the military: for a sequence of events, I would write, for example
_*0900* coffee
*0930* start meeting.
_
I don't use it any more, though, now I'm no longer writing in military contexts.


----------



## natkretep

Yes, I use a dot myself all the time for the 12-hour clock, and that was what I was taught to write as a child: 2.25pm. The 24-hour clock is a more new-fangled thing for me, at we were taught in school not to put in any punctuation 1425, but I have seen 14.25 (as well as 14:25) before and might use this form too.


----------



## Fabulist

It looks like the bottom line on this is that everyone in the English-speaking world would recognize 11:10 as a time, whereas 11.10 might be interpreted as something else.  Although _some_ people in English-speaking countries are comfortable with 11.10 for ten minutes after eleven a.m., not all are.  Therefore, it would be better to use 11:10.

1110 is the standard in the US armed forces and in some other contexts.  However, note that _in the U.S.,_ 24-hour time is not universally understood.  As difficult as it might be for people in other countries to believe, there are Americans who would convert 1425 to 4:25 p.m.  Therefore, it is important not to use 24-hour time if you want to be understood by American civilians.

Use of punctuation with 24-hour time (14:25 or 14.25) is very unusual in the U.S.  I would venture to say that it is only done by foreigners or found in foreign publications.


----------



## JamesM

Computer 24-hour time uses the punctuation: "2011-01-01 23:22.04023".

I can't think of a case where I would use a period rather than a colon in 24-hour time.


----------



## Rover_KE

JamesM said:


> I can't think of a case where I would use a period rather than a colon in 24-hour time.



I'm just the opposite. I always use a full stop and never a colon.

Rover


----------



## Andygc

panjandrum said:


> I wouldn't use nothing.


Nothing is the norm for train and bus timetables in the UK as well as for the military, as noted by Loob and Fabulist. I don't think it matters much:

I'll meet you at 1425.
I'll meet you at 14:25.
I'll meet you at 14.25.

Who is going to think that's anything other than the time?

(I accept that some Americans might get the time wrong, but that should be the only confusion)


----------



## Fabulist

In its printed timetables, the U.S. national passenger train operation, AMTRAK, uses no punctuation between the hour and the minutes but does separate them with a space.  It follows the minutes immediately with a capital A or P to indicate which half of the day the time refers to.  It does this for both domestic and international trains:  2 25P

On their Web sites, several U.S. domestic airlines separate the hour and the minutes with a colon, and follow the minutes by a small-capital AM or PM:  2:25 PM

On its Web site, Greyhound, a national bus company in the U.S., uses a leading zero with the hour, separates the hour and minutes with a colon, and follows the minutes with a space and an all-capital AM or PM:  02:25 PM

None of them use a period to separate the hours from the minutes, does not separate the hours from the minutes in some way, or uses 24-hour time in material for the general public.


----------



## Parla

Andygc said:


> I'll meet you at 1425.
> I'll meet you at 14:25.
> I'll meet you at 14.25.
> 
> Who is going to think that's anything other than the time?
> 
> (I accept that some Americans might get the time wrong, but that should be the only confusion)



Here's one American who would interpret the second as 2:25 p.m. but wouldn't know what to think about the others, unless the first were followed by "hours"; otherwise, it might be a street address. The third looks like a figure on a price tag.


----------



## natkretep

Parla said:


> Here's one American who would interpret the second as 2:25 p.m. but wouldn't know what to think about the others, unless the first were followed by "hours"; otherwise, it might be a street address. The third looks like a figure on a price tag.



Presumably that's because it was contextless. If I could just quote a page about parking: would *7.30-17.00* or *between 10.00 and 17.00* below be ambiguous? This represents to me the typical context of encountering times in this format.



> *Parking guidelines*
> Figures and letters are references to areas shown on the car access map.
> _Daytime (7.30-17.00), Monday to Saturday_
> 1b Streets to the north of the river
> G Castle Hill car park
> ...
> On Sundays between 10.00 and 17.00, there is an hourly rate of £1.70. At  all other times (early mornings, evenings and nights) there is an  hourly rate of £0.60.


----------



## JamesM

Within that context it would be understandable to me but very strange.  My first impression when seeing "between 10.00 and 17.00" is "between $10.00 and $17.00".


----------



## Fabulist

The _Chicago Manual of Style,_ by the University of Chicago Press, widely used by other academic or university presses, specifies use of a colon to separate hours from minutes for 12-hour time. In parentheses, it says flatly, "In Britain a period rather than a colon is used between hour and minutes—2.30." For 24-hour time, only four digits with no separator between hours and minutes is specified. I am referring to the 13th edition (1982).

The United States Government Printing Office Style Manual specifies the colon as the separator for hours and minutes with no separator for the 24-hour system that it describes as "astronomical and military time." Colons are also specified as separators between hours and minutes and minutes and seconds for a "stopwatch reading." The only use of a period is as a decimal point for decimal hours: 4 hours, 30 minutes = 4.5 hours. There is no supposition about British practice.

Three other style manuals used in the U.S., those of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press (AP), the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Modern Language Association (MLA), are available on-line only for purchase of the paper edition or through an annual paid subscription.

An old (1989) copy of _The New York Public Library Desk Reference_ does not have directions about how to express time, but when hours and minutes are given they are separated by a colon. An example of 24-hour time uses four digits with no separator.

I am still looking for any usage of a period as a separator between hours and minutes in the United States.


----------



## lizmag

As a British English speaker I'd always use a full stop and not a colon.  As for use of the 24-hour clock, those on mainland Europe would understand although for some British English speakers it might sound unusual.


----------



## Andygc

Coming back to this and in light of Fabulist's post mentioning the emphatic statement in the style guide, I think there may be a difference in the UK depending on whether it is the 12-hour clock or 24-hour clock that is the reference.

I would expect 2.30 am, 2.30 pm, not 2:30 am, 2:30 pm.
For the 24-hour clock I would expect 0230, 1430 in bus and train timetables but I would find it unremarkable if someone sent me a note that used 02:30 or 14:30.

I was initially surprised by the example that natkretep found, but on looking at it I discovered that I am not actually surprised, I just wouldn't write a 24-hour time that way.


----------



## Karen123456

After reading all the replies, it seems that the Americans would use a colon for time, and the British would use a full stop.


----------



## Producer

I realise that I am a bit late coming to this debate but as a professional I'd like to add my two pence (or two cents) worth. My background is television production - especially the bits between programmes. I've also been a journalist.

The fact is the full stop and the colon are both correct. You will even find the absurd situation where for example a tv channel website will list programme times with a colon while on air its promos use a full stop.

I was recently corrected by a senior linguist for using a full stop for times on a website. I had to point to the poor chap that tv has been using them for years instead of colons.

If all around you are using one in preference to the other then go with the flow - that's all I can say. So if you are in America and most of the people in your business or area use a colon then do the same.


----------



## Rover_KE

Producer said:


> If all around you are using one in preference to the other then go with the flow - that's all I can say. So if you are in America and most of the people in your business or area use a colon then do the same.



Welcome, Producer.

Thanks for a useful contribution.

Rover


----------



## Karen123456

<Merged with earlier thread. Nat>

Is 2:00pm American English and 2.00pm British English? (The former has a colon after 2, while the latter has a period after 2.)

Thanks.


----------



## entangledbank

Yes, more or less, though the colon is also seen here sometimes.


----------



## YankeeDude

I would like to offer a few useful links for those seeking clarity in British usage and grammar:

• University of Oxford Style guide
• University of Cambridge Editorial style guide
• BBC News style guide

Hope this can be of help.


----------



## jammy-craig

_"The fact is the full stop and the colon are both correct. "_
Really? You mean "_... are both used_."
A "." means decimal point in UK.
I appreciate there is a different decimal place holder in Europe to UK so maybe ok in Europe, but in UK it must be wrong using a *decimal point* in quoting times. It's just not right mathematically. Time is not decimal (unless you ARE talking about decimal time!) It's got to be a colon in UK for hours and minutes based time, for it to be right mathematically. But everywhere i look in UK there is a decimal point. 
_<-----Off-topic comments removed by moderator (Florentia52)----->_


----------



## Keith Bradford

jammy-craig said:


> _"The fact is the full stop and the colon are both correct. "_
> Really? You mean "_... are both used_."
> A "." means decimal point in UK...


Don't be so dogmatic, Jammy, it means a whole pile of other things too, the most common being a full stop at the end of a sentence or an abbreviation. Your prejudices are taking over.

The fact (rather than preference) is this:
The single stop used to be the norm in Britain for separating hours from minutes, until about 50 years ago.  Then, either through the influence of computers or just general Americanisation, the colon gradually took over.  Now, since there is no authority to say otherwise, both can be considered as "correct" in UK usage.

My belief (not a verified fact) is this:
Many British people may still keep the single stop for writing prose, and use the colon when entering computer data.  I certainly do.


----------



## Andygc

jammy-craig said:


> It's got to be a colon in UK for hours and minutes based time, for it to be right mathematically. But everywhere i look in UK there is a decimal point.


_<-----Reply to now-deleted comment removed by moderator (Florentia52)----->_ The point in a 12-hour time in the UK is not a decimal point, it's the punctuation that separates hours from minutes. This has nothing whatsoever to do with mathematics. It has all been explained earlier in the thread, with references to various style guides.


----------



## jammy-craig

_<-----Reply to now-deleted comment removed by moderator (Florentia52)----->_

But it looks like a decimal point, so it is obviously confusing to use it, no?

Sorry, didn't read whole of thread, I will go back and read_<...>_...


----------



## natkretep

Look, jammy, you can use the dot in dates - today is 11.9.2018. We can use the dot as a separator for times too 5.26.33 (5 hours, 26 minutes and 33 seconds).


----------



## jammy-craig

_<...>_You can use them...don't make it right or helpful

who writes a time like... "5.26.33" ???? never seen that. wouldn't recognise it

as for dates, i never write it with a decimal point. or full stop. or whatever you want to cal it.
In fact that is a good example of how unhelpful it usually is! often left wondering if it written american stye with the month first or whatever.
I try to write the day, the month in letters, then the year. 7 Aug 1966. smaller area for confusion. My main point.

"nothing whatsoever to do with maths..." ???? really? number system? nothing to do with maths conventions? time is a number. should be written in conventional number format
date is different ... that's three numbers so should have units on it... from now on i am only writing a date like... "3rd Day, 4th Month, 2018th Year; ano domini" no matter how small the box is!
_<-----Off-topic comments removed by moderator (Florentia52)----->_


----------



## dtyt2009

[Please note that this post and the following ones have been added to a previous thread covering the same topic.  DonnyB - moderator]
Up till the 1960s, using a full-stop to separate the hour from the minute in a time was the norm: e. g., ‘17.30’. Since then, the colon has become more common (e. g., ‘17:30’), but the full-stop is still being widely used.

Does anyone know if the full-stop has ever been used to separate the minute from the second in a time (e. g., ‘17.30.12’)?


----------



## london calling

I've never come across that myself. I'm only familiar with it written like this: 17:30:12 .


----------



## Cenzontle

I don't remember ever seeing the single dot used in clock times (and I learned to read before the 1960s).
It's always been the colon for me.
Nowadays, if I saw it with the single dot I would think 
"What's this?  Some new-fangled convention being imposed from the computer world?"


----------



## sdgraham

I have not seen it either.

It's really a style issue for non-technical purposes, but note that the full stop (AE: period) is absent from both the ISO 8601 time/date standard and the ANSI INCITS 30-1997 (R2008) U.S. time/date specification.

When you make a statement like:


dtyt2009 said:


> Up till the 1960s, using a full-stop to separate the hour from the minute in a time was the norm:


it would be helpful if you specify *where* you recall it as being "the norm."


----------



## london calling

Wikipedia says this about time notation in the UK:

To separate different parts of time, either a full point or a colon can be used. For 12-hour time, the point format (for example "1.45 p.m.") is in common usage and has been recommended by some style guides, including the academic manual published by Oxford University Press under various titles, as well as the internal house style book for the University of Oxford, that of _The Guardian_ and _The Times _newspapers.

---------------------------

In 24-hour time, a colon is internationally standard (as in "13:45"). Some British news publishers favour "13.45" format instead, such as _The Guardian_. Some stick with the colon, including the _Evening Standard_ and the BBC. Oxford recognises both styles.


----------



## Egmont

dtyt2009 said:


> Up till the 1960s, using a full-stop to separate the hour from the minute in a time was the norm ...



I disagree with this premise. I completed all but the last few months of secondary school before the 1960s. I attended schools in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East. Some of those places had been until shortly before then under British control and used British English. (The Anglo-American High School in suburban Athens tried to use both, with varying degrees of success.) In addition, both my parents were born in England and adhered, more or less, to the habits they developed there in the first quarter of the 20th century. I do not recall ever seeing a time written with a period (aka full stop) anywhere at all in that time frame, let alone more recently. I'm not saying it was never done, but calling it "the norm" does not match my memory of that time.


----------



## dtyt2009

I grew up in this new era where using the colon is the norm in British English (although the use of the full-stop is not unheard of, and a number of major newspapers, such as _The Times_, also use the full-stop). I have observed that the full-stop was used very often in the past in British English (e. g., in timetables), so, if we write ‘17:30:12’ today, I wonder if people would have written ‘17.30.12’ in the past.

Logically, it seems that people would have done so, since they were already using the full-stop to separate the hour from the minute. However, I’m yet to come across any evidence which points to such practice (e. g., contemporary books).


----------



## Uncle Jack

I cannot think of any clockwork public clock with a second hand, so I suspect the situation rarely arose. The only place I think times would be routinely recorded with seconds is in astronavigation, as four seconds of time equates to a minute of longitude, which is a nautical mile at the equator. However, I cannot think where these might have survived; the ship's position would have been recorded in the ship's log, but the actual times and altitudes are just part of the working out. Old almanacs would be no good as these only give times by the minute and you extrapolate to get positions for between times. I wonder if Maskelyne's moons of Jupiter tables might have included seconds (these were included in early almanacs), but a modern version I found only gives minutes:






Incidentally, my first line of research was railway working timetables, as modern ones sometimes use seconds, but none of the ones I looked at from the 1940s and 1950s had anything less than a minute. But I can confirm they all used single dots between hours and minutes when the times weren't in columns (where they were just spaced). All times were in 12-hour format, and there were no leading zeroes for either hours or minutes.


----------



## london calling

dtyt2009 said:


> I grew up in this new era where using the colon is the norm in British English (although the use of the full-stop is not unheard of, and a number of major newspapers, such as _The Times_, also use the full-stop). I have observed that the full-stop was used very often in the past in British English (e. g., in timetables), so, if we write ‘17:30:12’ today, I wonder if people would have written ‘17.30.12’ in the past.


I have no idea why you think that the full stop was only used up to the 60s. If you read my post 6 above you will see it's still in use by some in time notation in the UK.


----------



## PaulQ

monkeyaug said:


> I wonder if I can use full stop instead of colon when to say time. For example,
> 
> I will arrive there at 14.25.( instead of at 14:25) Is it right?


Yes.


----------



## dtyt2009

london calling said:


> I have no idea why you think that the full stop was only used up to the 60s. If you read my post 6 above you will see it's still in use by some in time notation in the UK.


I know the full-stop is also used today. What I mean is it seems to me that the colon is much more commonly used nowadays than the full-stop.

However, all the sources I have seen so far – both modern and historical – only show the use of full-stop when separating the hour from the minute (e. g., ‘17.30’ as in my first example). Hence, I’m curious about whether people would have also used the full-stop to separate the minute from the second in the past (e. g., ‘17.30.12’ as in my other example).

Incidentally, I’ve recently come across an article in _The Times_, ‘New iPhone Has Shorter Battery Life Than Before, Test Finds’, which uses the full-stop to separate the hour from the minute when describing an amount of time. In that article, ‘9 hours and 48 minutes’ is expressed as ‘9.48’.


----------



## Uncle Jack

dtyt2009 said:


> Incidentally, I have recently come across an article in _The Times_, ‘New iPhone Has Shorter Battery Life Than Before, Test Finds’, which uses the full-stop to separate the hour from the minute when describing an amount of time. In that article, ‘9 hours and 48 minutes’ is expressed as ‘9.48’.


No, I think this is simply a matter of a journalist with inadequate numeracy skills confusing hours and minutes with decimal hours (I doubt the source material made the confusion). 9 hours 41 minutes is unambiguous, but I can only read 9.48 as nine point four eight hours. Even though this goes against the writer's line of reasoning (it would mean the new iPhone has a _longer _than average life), I would regard it as just another example of innumeracy among journalists.

I would be happy to be proved mistaken, but I don't think decimal separators have ever been used for durations, as opposed to times of day.


----------



## Edinburgher

That article does not demonstrate the writer's innumeracy, merely a use of non-standard notation, or a misinterpretation of the source material.
He  writes the full form "9 hours 41 minutes" for the first duration, and then abbreviates the other two durations to 9.48 and 10.49 intending them also to mean hours.minutes.
We don't know what the source material said, but I suspect (with Uncle Jack) that it may have used a dot as a decimal point for all three, and that the correspondent misinterpreted it as an hours/minutes separator.
If only the material had included a time in which the decimal part was .60 or more, he wouldn't have made that mistake.


----------



## PaulQ

dtyt2009 said:


> used the full-stop to separate the minute from the second in the past, e. g., ‘17.30.12’


It depends how far in the past and who was doing the notation.

17.30.12 would never have been used seriously - it is substandard. See:


jammy-craig said:


> who writes a time like... "5.26.33" ???? never seen that. wouldn't recognise it


Wikipedia has thought about your question and has a manual of style: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers - Wikipedia
The system is designed to cope with readers from all nationalities and backgrounds, and does so successfully: I suggest you use this and nothing else.


----------



## Uncle Jack

I've found the source: Smartphones with the Longest Battery Life and iPhone XS vs. iPhone X: What's Changed?

All the times are hours and minutes, all very clearly described. I think Mark Bridge, who wrote the _Sunday Times_ article, is unjustified in changing the notation.


----------



## Loob

PaulQ said:


> It depends how far in the past and who was doing the notation.
> 
> 17.30.12 would never have been used seriously - it is substandard


Dtyt2009, I have a vague recollection of seeing hours-minutes-seconds punctuated with point followed by colon, as in
*17.30:12*
But I have no idea how I'd go about checking that.


----------



## PaulQ

Loob said:


> 17.30:12


Ooh... I don't like that!


----------



## Rover_KE

I've just looked at the radio and TV programme schedules in all the listing magazines and Sunday papers on my newsagent's shelf.

They *all* show the times with a full stop.


----------



## PaulQ

dtyt2009 said:


> I know the full-stop is also used today. What I mean is it seems to me that the colon is much more commonly used nowadays than the full-stop.


----------



## Rover_KE

dtyt2009 said:


> I know the full-stop is also used today. What I mean is it seems to me that the colon is much more commonly used nowadays than the full-stop.


It isn't in the thousands of examples every day in the publications I mentioned in post #48.


----------



## Loob

dtyt2009 said:


> Does anyone know if the full-stop has ever been used to separate the minute from the second in a time (e. g., ‘17.30.12’)?


I've just re-read the whole thread, and realised that there's an affirmative answer to dtyt2009's question in Nat's post 29:


natkretep said:


> We can use the dot as a separator for times too 5.26.33 (5 hours, 26 minutes and 33 seconds).


----------



## ewie

Like Rover, I believe that rumours that colons are replacing stops as the standard notation in everyday BrE are greatly exaggerated.

(Personally, I use stops and wouldn't dream of using colons.)


----------



## dtyt2009

ewie said:


> Personally, I use stops and wouldn't dream of using colons.


Will you write ‘17.30.12’ when you want to say ‘12 seconds past half past five in the afternoon’?


----------



## Englishmypassion

ewie said:


> Like Rover, I believe that rumours that colons are replacing stops as the standard notation in everyday BrE are greatly exaggerated.
> 
> (Personally, I use stops and wouldn't dream of using colons.)



What about Britain-made digital watches and clocks? They use the colon, right? 
Thanks.


----------



## Edinburgher

"Britain-made"?  You must be joking.  They're all made in the Far East.

I've just looked at all the digital clocks around the house, and in the car, and on my phone.  They all use colons.
I've looked at a random sample of two "what's on" webpages of local venues (one concert hall and one theatre).  One uses colons, one uses dots.
Whilst I have nothing against colons for this, I tend to use dots purely because they are easier to type (you don't need to use the shift key).


----------



## ewie

dtyt2009 said:


> Will you write ‘17.30.12’ when you want to say ‘12 seconds past half past five in the afternoon’?


I can't imagine any circumstances whatever in which I'd want to write/say that

If I had to write it, I'd write _12 seconds past 5.30pm._


----------



## Shoshin Samurai

In my mind, if someone writes "The train leaves at 9.50 in the morning," it creates a doubt, and I wonder if the writer intended to say 9:30 a.m -- for, 9.5 is halfway between 9 and 10. Call it full-stop or period or stop or merely punctuation, it doesn't matter. The confusion exists. But, the use of colon makes it clear. 
Read above that in UK, until about 50 years back, use of the _stop _sign was common. Well, _if_ that is the case, UK seems to have imbibed the use of colon quite readily. There must be a reason for that and I don't see a reason to hold onto tradition for the sake of tradition - especially when English is so delightfully polyglot.


----------



## DonnyB

Shoshin Samurai said:


> In my mind, if someone writes "The train leaves at 9.50 in the morning," it creates a doubt, and I wonder if the writer intended to say 9:30 a.m -- for, 9.5 is halfway between 9 and 10. Call it full-stop or period or stop or merely punctuation, it doesn't matter. The confusion exists. But, the use of colon makes it clear.
> Read above that in UK, until about 50 years back, use of the _stop _sign was common. Well, _if_ that is the case, UK seems to have imbibed the use of colon quite readily. There must be a reason for that and I don't see a reason to hold onto tradition for the sake of tradition - especially when English is so delightfully polyglot.


I honestly don't think any native BE speaker would interpret "9.50 in the morning" as half-past nine. To the best of my knowledge (and I can remember the days before the 24-hour clock started to be used in bus and train timetables) times were only ever expressed in hours and minutes, not as decimals.


----------



## natkretep

I agree. Nobody would interpret it that way. The dot is still common in the UK, and other parts of the Commonwealth except perhaps Canada. Perhaps if the attempts to decimalise time after the French Revolution made headway, and we had 100 minutes to the hour, that might make sense.


----------



## Uncle Jack

Using decimal hours only makes sense with a duration, not a time of day, but it would be written as 9.5, not 9.50 (a 9.5-hour flight for example).

Playing devil's advocate, there are potentially more ambiguous times to choose. If a sign says "this play lasts "1.25 hours", does it mean 75 minutes or 85 minutes? Even in this situation, it can only possibly mean 75 minutes (an hour and a quarter). If the writer meant 85 minutes, they would have written something like "this play lasts 1 hour and 25 minutes", or even "this play lasts 1h25".


----------



## ewie

Thus far no-one's mentioned these little chaps ---> ½ ¼ ¾ <---, which I use *often*.
_This play lasts 1¼ hours.
A 9½-hour flight.
Wagner's Ring Cycle lasts 39¾ hours, no bathroom breaks._


----------



## Edinburgher

ewie said:


> these little chaps ---> ½ ¼ ¾ <---, which I use *often*.


I only use them in handwriting.  They're too difficult to find on a keyboard.


> Wagner's Ring Cycle lasts 39¾ hours


You made that up.  My Ring only lasts 14 and 2/3 hours.
Looking at the booklets that come with the 14 CDs (to bring this back on-topic), they give timings in minutes and seconds, separated by a dot.
So the longest of the operas shows "Total timing 265.07" which is some 4 1/2 hours.  Still a very long wait for the fat lady to sing.


----------



## london calling

DonnyB said:


> I honestly don't think any native BE speaker would interpret "9.50 in the morning" as half-past nine. To the best of my knowledge (and I can remember the days before the 24-hour clock started to be used in bus and train timetables) times were only ever expressed in hours and minutes, not as decimals.


I agree 100%. And many people write '9.50' anyway, see the posts above.


----------



## RM1(SS)

ewie said:


> Thus far no-one's mentioned these little chaps ---> ½ ¼ ¾ <---, which I use *often*.





Edinburgher said:


> I only use them in handwriting.  They're too difficult to find on a keyboard.


They don't even exist on my keyboard.   I would certainly use them if they did.


----------



## ewie

Try doing this, RM1:
ALT 171 > ½
ALT 172 > ¼
ALT 243 > ¾

The reason I brought them up (by the way) is that I would never dream of writing _3.5 hours_: I'd only ever write _3½ hours_
(Mind you, I do have a weird fondness for 'old-fashioned' fractions)


----------



## RM1(SS)

ewie said:


> Try doing this, RM1:
> ALT 171 > ½
> ALT 172 > ¼
> ALT 243 > ¾


That requires a) extra strokes and b) remembering which extra strokes.  (The same goes for em dashes and en dashes.)  If I'm really desperate to use them, I'll copy-and-paste from elsewhere.


----------



## Edinburgher

ewie said:


> Try doing this, RM1:


None of that Alt stuff works on my machine; I use Linux (Ubuntu).  As it happens, those symbols are on my keyboard, they're just not painted on the keys.  So I have to click on something to invoke the keyboard layout chart to remind me which of those silly fraction characters are where.  I need to hold down AltGr while pressing certain keys (some of them with Shift) to get ⅛, ¼, ⅜, ½, ⅝, ¾, and ⅞, but that doesn't help if I want to use fractions involving thirds, sevenths, or 365ths.  And they're also often too small to read anyway, so I'd much rather use the equivalent full-size numbers in conjunction with slashes: 1/8, 1/4, 2/3, _et cetera, et cetera, et cetera_.


----------



## natkretep

Let me just add that I'm like ewie and like my fractions. Yes, it's a pain to get the characters, but I do think they are so much more pleasing to the eye. And so I'd always write 3½ hours (or 3½ hrs, or 3 hrs 30 mins, or 210 mins), not 3.5 hours


----------



## Uncle Jack

Is suppose the curious thing, since the division of hours into minutes seems to have been designed for it, is why it is so unnatural to write something like 1⅔ hours.

There is, of course, another objection against using forms like "⅔". I'm not as young as I once was and I struggle to make out these tiny numbers.


----------



## natkretep

Culturally, we don't do thirds well. We like our halves and quarters, and that is the way with time: half past three, a quarter to four. Never a third past three, or a sixth past three.

I've just paid a man who comes to help out in the garden and he gets an hourly rate, and we're prepared to deal with half hours and quarter hours but nothing beyond that. He was actually here from 2.20 to 5.00pm, and he was paid for 2¾ hours, although 2⅔ would have been more accurate.


----------



## sound shift

ewie said:


> Like Rover, I believe that rumours that colons are replacing stops as the standard notation in everyday BrE are greatly exaggerated.
> 
> (Personally, I use stops and wouldn't dream of using colons.)


I've always used full stops, but two-and-a-half years on I think this is more than a rumour and that the colon is fast displacing the full stop. Americanisation, enthusiastically abetted by British business and British journalists.


----------



## kentix

Computers "make" people do things, too. After awhile, we serve them as much as they serve us. As much as we might contest between M-D-Y and D-M-Y date orders, computers only really like Y-M-D. I recently finally caved and started naming some of my file folders that way.

In SQL, the database storage system that has versions everywhere across the world, and which stores all the data for this website, the colon is the default time separator (except for milliseconds). It was probably chosen to clearly distinguish time from decimal numbers.*

Well it was probably chosen because it was developed in the United States, where that is standard practice. But it has the great advantage of clearly distinguishing times from decimal numbers.



natkretep said:


> Presumably that's because it was contextless. If I could just quote a page about parking: would *7.30-17.00* ... below be ambiguous?


Honestly, when I first saw this, my gut reaction was that it was somewhere between July 30th and seventeen dollars.


----------



## ewie

sound shift said:


> I've always used full stops, but two-and-a-half years on I think this is more than a rumour and that the colon is fast displacing the full stop. Americanisation, enthusiastically abetted by British business and British journalists.


I think you might be right, Mr S /


----------



## Keith Bradford

sound shift said:


> ...Americanisation, enthusiastically abetted by British business and British journalists.


Now I'll bow to none in my dislike of certain American inventions, such as monstrosities like _burglarization _and the prudery that reduces _cock _to _rooster_.  But I'm not prepared to cut off my nose to spite my face in the matter of colons in expressions of time, and that for several reasons:

For over 20 years my computer was a willing servant, keeping my business priorities in chronological order.  For this I used a custom-made Excel spreadsheet.  Remembering to use a colon in expessing time was no more arduous that remembering the slash in typing dates, and a small price to pay;
The resulting clarity which distinguished 12/10/00  (October 12th, twenty years ago) from 12:10:00 (ten past midday) and from 12.10.00 (God knows what that should mean) was well worth the effort;
Poor old Sgt Fred Colon has been much neglected in recent years and it's good to see him being brought out of retirement and appreciated.
Quite honestly, I don't care whether it was Bill Gates who thought this idea up, or Alan Turing (at last recognised as a British national hero on the new £50 notes).  It's a good idea and I'll buy it.


----------



## ewie

Keith Bradford said:


> the slash


Ah, you mean the _oblique_


----------



## sound shift

Fair enough, Keith, but when I write 11.05 (mostly for hospital appointments) on my non-digital year planner (yes, the hand can be used to write as well as hit keys) there's no lack of clarity. And of course, the colon uses more ink ...


----------



## Edinburgher

sound shift said:


> And of course, the colon uses more ink ...


Why even bother with the dot?  "1105" uses even less ink.


----------



## natkretep

Yes, I have noticed some young people here dispensing with the punctuation. Our cheques here are also dispensing with punctuation for dates: so today is 260321. (I continue to write 9.39pm, as I see at the bottom of my laptop.)

Added:


----------



## PaulQ

natkretep said:


> (I continue to write 9.39pm, as I see at the bottom of my laptop.)


Whereas mine has


----------



## london calling

PaulQ said:


> Whereas mine has
> View attachment 55322


So does mine.


----------



## PaulQ

It seems that the colon is more associated with the 24hr clock and scientific, military, and official times, whereas the full stop/period/point is more informal and commoner with the am/pm designation.


----------



## kentix

And of course there's no difference in American English. If there is a divider, it's always a colon. AM and PM makes no difference.

Here is an excerpt from the confirmation email regarding my recently made COVID vaccination appointment.

*Start Time:* 4/6/2021 1:45 PM EST
*End Time:* 4/6/2021 2:00 PM EST


----------



## PaulQ

I don't think I would write 5*:*30am; rather 5*.*30am, but I would, and do, write 05:30. (This thread could run and run...)


----------



## Edinburgher

When I got my Covid vaccination appointment letter from the NHS it said that it was "at 13:38".
This surprised me.  Not because of the colon, but because it wasn't a multiple of 5 minutes.


----------



## kentix

In a casual note we might say something like:

"I'll be there at 6:30."

When you have dinner plans it's obvious and not necessary to write pm.

But you might write:

"My flight leaves at 9:15 pm. Do you think you could give me a ride to the airport?"


----------



## Egmont

PaulQ said:


> Whereas mine has
> View attachment 55322


My Mac shows this:





There are various ways to customize this display, including using a 24-hour clock, displaying seconds, and more, but none of them (as far as I could tell) change the separator character.


----------



## sdgraham

Egmont said:


> My Mac shows this:
> 
> View attachment 55329
> 
> There are various ways to customize this display, including using a 24-hour clock, displaying seconds, and more, but none of them (as far as I could tell) change the separator character.


Likewise for my MS Windows 10 ... but it knows I'm in the U.S., so there might be regional differences.


----------



## kentix

There are regional settings in Windows 10 where you can choose from several hundred? combinations.

For instance, they don't just have English, or even British, U.S., Australian, etc. They have English (Gambia), English (Germany), English (Ghana), English (Gibraltar). etc. The same with French and other languages.

But I was foolish enough to look through every setting and there are only a handful that don't specify the colon in the time format. Some of those are places where Arabic numerals aren't used at all, but even in many places where they aren't, the colon is still the time separator between the native numerals.

The exceptions I found with Arabic numerals were:

Danish (Greenland) - it's default is a dot for both date and time - 26.03.2021 - 14.13 - 14.13.58  (with leading zeros)

[On the other hand: Danish (Denmark) hyphens and colons - 26-03-2021 - 14:13 - 14:13:58   (with leading zeros)]​
English (Finland)  slashes and dots    - 26/03/2021 - 14.13 - 14.13.58 (with leading zeros on the dates but not the times)

Low German (Netherlands)  - dots for the date, dots _and_ colons for the time - 26.03.2021 - Kl. 14.13 - but Klock 14.13:58  (no leading zeros except on the month)
Low German (Germany) - the same as Low German (Netherlands)

Occitan (France) - a mix  - 26/03/2021  - 14 h 13  - but 14.13.58  (with leading zeros for all, including even the short form)

It shows English (United States) as  - 3/26/2021 - 2:13 PM  -  2:13:58 PM - 12 hour clock with no leading zeros for the date or the hours
It shows English (United Kingdom) as -  26/03/2021 - 14:13  - 14:13:58 - 24 hour clock with leading zeros for the date and the hours

Within that page is another settings button that allows you to set whatever format you want. You can set 77 as your time separator if you want. It's completely freeform.

You can get there through the old Control Panel under Clock and Region > Region > Change Date, Time or Number formats > Additional Settings


----------



## Egmont

kentix said:


> There are regional settings in Windows 10 where you can choose from several hundred? combinations...


Interesting. I just looked at the Language & Region control panel on my Mac. When I changed it to Denmark, the hours-minutes separator changed to a period (dot). I changed it back, though.


----------

