Clock & Dates

Denoting time is one of the oldest functions of a language. You know what that means by now: irregularity.

The way English talks about dates and time, for example, is completely dissimilar to how my own language (Dutch) talks about it. That’s why I wanted to do an article on it.

It’s important and ubiquitous. But you won’t quickly grasp it by reading random English text.

Time display

Because of the digital age, most people are now used to 24-hour clocks.

These are written as: hours:minutes The hours go from 00-24. The minutes from 00-60.

English, however, commonly divides the day into two halves of 12 hours.

• The first half is called “AM”: after midnight.
• The second half is called “PM”: pre midnight, or before midnight

Midnight is the point at which the new day starts. So it isn’t that strange to use it as the division point.

Times of day

Here’s an overview of what each time of day is called.

• Anything until around 12:00 is morning. (🕛)
• 12:00 is called midday or noon
• From 12:00 to 18:00 is called afternoon (🕕)
• From 18:00 to 24:00 is called evening
• 24:00 is called midnight (🕛)
• And around those hours is therefore the night, but the boundaries aren’t clear.

When the sun comes up, it’s called dawn or sunrise. When the sun goes down again, it’s called dusk or sunset.

Clock

To communicate this time, you can simply say it out loud. “05:30 PM” is “five thirty PM”.

But that often isn’t ideal. Especially when working with a physical clock, we switch to a different method.

Full hours are called <hour> o’clock. This is an abbreviation of “on the clock”.

Any other times are usually stated relative to the full hour. You first find the closest full hour. Then base the time on that.

• If you’re on the left side, you are before the full hour, and use the word to
• If you’re on the right side, you are after the full hour, and use the word past

We have shorthands for common distances:

• 30 minutes is half (as it is half a full hour)
• 15 minutes is quarter (as it is 1/4 of a full hour)

Dates

Dates have three components: the day, the month and the year.

Again, the digital age made most people familiar with the quickstyle: “day / month / year”

This is fine for notes, but should not be used in (formal) writing.

Year

Everyone agrees that the year should come last. You should never even start a sentence with a year. In general, i’s confusing and poor style to start sentences with numbers.

If you write about a century ( = period of 100 years), add an “s” (without apostrophe!).

If you write about a decennium ( = period of 10 years), do the same, but add an apostrophe (') at the start.

Day and month

Everyone agrees about the year. But the day and the month? They can be in any order.

You can write them with a ranking number. In that case, use the ranking form for the day, and write the month in full.

You can also write them without a ranking number, if you leave out the “of”.

In any case, the year (if included) comes last and needs a comma before it.