First- I respect people that fought for their country (even if that country was North Korea), and empathise with their PTSD and other scars. The way veterans are treated isnt good, being left broken and homeless, and a day of remembrance is good.
However. USA's obsession with veterans is so odd. It is continually at war, so I guess theres a lot of them, but still.
USA is the only country that I know of that frequently gives store discounts to people because they used to work in the military. There are tributes at college football games, and flyovers, as well as corporate lipservice in their advertisements. It has multiple holidays for them (2 out of the 11 public holidays). Thats more than Jesus or the constitution gets.
Does America worship the military more than anything else (except the flag but a lot of that is tied up in military rites and regulations)?
A lot of it is a big cultural swing after how Vietnam vets were treated and represented during and immediately post war.
They were treated as blood thirsty baby killing conquistadors (which did happen). But most were just poor, got drafted or pressured by family to serve.
As a nation the guilt caused the mentality to swing an equally unhealthy amount the other way.
It is propaganda, the lessons the Vietnam war taught were about never letting the public see all the heinous shit soldiers get up to. The flyovers and shit is all military funded propaganda.
It also has a lot to do with military service being voluntary in the states combined with the government treats vets like shit. The more people see through the promised benefits that aren’t worth the risks to life and physical and mental health, if you even get them in the first place, the more they have to push the “support our hero troops” narrative to lure poor suckers in out of a sense of honor.
Also if his work uses the 24hr clock then it's completely reasonable. I write my dates in the normal international order (9 Dec 2025) at work because we work with people in Europe and it's the most clear way. I'm not pretending to be European.
Especially anyone who works in a job where shifts can start any time in the 24h cycle, from pilots and flight attendants to doctors and nurses . . . to people who work in manufacturing, as the applicant did. The hiring manager is being an idiot.
In germany, both is possible. Casual conversation where the time of day is obvious (like, the lunch date at 2 will not be 2 hours past midnight), going by the 12h-cycle numbers is totally fine. But saying "14 Uhr" (basicly 14 o'clock) is just as fine.
In casual comversations, you can use 12 hours format, but in writing, formal conversation or any other interaction where you need to be sure theres no doubt about the hour, you use 24h clock
Drinks at 9 or a business meeting at 11 are deducible from context. Flights or trains are better given in 24 hour format, lest one member of the party ends up stranded.
Same in Romania - and when I was in the US far too many people freaked out about my digital watch being set to 24hrs - you'd think it was a grave insult to them to have to count past 12...
In Ireland, it would be really odd for someone to say 14.00. In text form, I've never had or seen an issue with it. Most of our timetables and such would be in 24hr.
No, but we can all see 14:00 and instantly know it means 2pm.
Unlike one nation's citizens we don't start counting on our fingers or crying about "military time".
I remember seeing a post on here ages ago where the American heard "quarter past" and thought that meant 25 minutes past. They really struggle with letters and numbers over there.
Yes because to them a "quarter" is a coin with a value of 25¢, and they completely missed learning that it's both called that and has that value because it's one quarter of a dollar.
Im german and "lets meet at 15" and "lets meet at 3" is basically interchangeable (if the context makes it clear 3 in the afternoon is intended - like obviously Im not having a work meeting at 3 am)
Unless, ofcourse, you're working in a business where 24/7 operation is normal, in which case you would use the 24h form to avoid confusion because then the meeting might very well take place at 03:00 in the morning.
In normal conversation though, you simply read and say 3 to mean 15:00 and 7 to mean 19:00 without thinking. It's mind-boggling how millions of people can't wrap their heads around this, while at the same time arguing that 5280 is a perfectly sane number to use for conversion.
In Poland we use both. Personally I don't have preference. Sometimes I'll say 16, sometimes 4. Although when speaking English I always use am/pm as this sounds better in my head.
I generally write the time as, say, 1400, but would actually say 2 o'clock. I guess it's the circumstances? At work, which runs 24/7, I'd always use the 24 hour clock for paperwork, just to reduce potential confusion. If I'm meeting friends, 2 o'clock would be fine. (They'd know I meant 2pm. I'm getting old and am definitely asleep by 2am!)
Yeah, in my experience, if you're giving the time to the hour or a standard fraction (quarter past, 20 past, half past, 20 to quarter to, O'clock...) then you use the 12 hour clock, and if you're giving it to the exact minute then a lot of people will just swap to the 24hr clock without even thinking about it.
My native language is not English, but I write 14:00 while I use the equivalent of "two o clock" and "fourteen o clock" interchangeably, mostly using the latter for context. I'll also occasionally say something like "zero two o clock" to emphasize that I mean two at night (02:00) and not two in the afternoon.
Oh I think many/most people actually do say "in the morning" / "in the afternoon" here too, maybe it's mostly me who just likes "zero two" because it's shorter.
If I started saying (or writing) "AM/PM" I think a lot of people wouldn't understand it, I didn't really get it either until I was an adult. I still have to think a bit about whether "12AM/PM" is midday or midnight.
In Dutch zero has only one syllable too, but if needed we just add the part of the day (which most of the time adds two syllables). It’s about the only time we get to use genitives anymore.
Only on American shows on television. None of the Brits I ever spoke to said that. I’ve heard those versions in German, but only from people who speak it as a second language. I also never heard it in Dutch. If there is any question which 2 o’clock we mean, we just add either “at night” or “in the afternoon”.
Then we may follow up by saying “it’s half past one now so we have just under an hour”. Also we might say that the station is 1/2 a mile away but there’s a Starbucks in 100 metres - I’ve only put 10 litres of fuel in the car but it does 35 mpg. Brits are effing brilliant!
Maybe Dutch uses it for announcing trains too. I haven’t taken a Dutch train in years. It makes sense. Spoken we would still say “the train of two before half three (in the afternoon)”.
I used it when writing the time down on a checksheet, and noticed others started doing it too. I have a coworker who can't read 24 hour clocks. I prefer it ever since I was 7 years old and we had a VCR with a 24 clock. I taught myself how to read it because of the VCR.
In Poland we say either. 14:00 can be said as two o'clock, or as fourteenth hour. It's interchangeable and no one has an issue, but Americans can't count past twelve.
Well, in Germany you write 14:00 and call it either "Zwei Uhr (nachmittags)" (literally two o'clock (afternoon)) or indeed "Vierzehn Uhr" (literally 14 o'clock), but nope, no ones says fourteen hundred.
I’d say ”fourteen oh oh” or just ”fourteen”. Translated directly from how we say it in Swedish. Or sometimes two. It all depends. Fourteen for unambiguity, two if it’s really obvious from the context what time I mean.
Not like that, but maybe a confused German who thinks that just the American way of spelling 24h format times?
Never witnessed that, but we use stuff like "2", "2 in the afternoon" and "14 o clock" (or "quarter before three" and "fourteen - fourtyfive" for another example) very interchangeably, although with a bias towards 12h format since that's usually enough information and shorter.
We do at my workplace but we have someone over the radio giving us a time so it makes sense to just say fourteen hundred cause that's what we gotta write down
In Denmark we would for sure say "let's meet fourteen thirty to go shopping" or "the party is klokken 19" in german that would be "um 19 uhr", does not have an english direct translation, I guess.
Right?? This drives me crazy...the military isn't even the only "entity" who uses "military time"...so does basically everyone in the medical field lol. Should we alternatively call it "doctor time"?
Not to mention, it just makes more sense than a 12 hour clock, even for us civilians. They can't gatekeep my easy way to tell time 😂
I have never read such an idiotic comment as that stolen Valor shit in the screenshot. WTF military time … as you say normal people just call it a 24 hour clock.
The guy who didn’t get the job should sue for discrimination and definitely NOT take a job at a place where the IQ level is room temperature.
American fetishization of violence. People robbed of their power by their government and the corporate interests it serves, desperate enough to feel powerful that they'll feign service to the very government that took it. It's absolutely wild, not unlike r/malesurvivingspace ... Guys crashing on couch cushions in an abandoned garage but has $6k in semiautomatic anti personnel rifles. Like, every day, several times a day, posts like that. Even if it's just people being silly, 30-50 feral hogs must be a threat every third household.
Discounts require proof. My dad had a card that said he was a veteran. No idea if he ever used it outside the VA (hospitals/doctors for veterans basically). As for pats on the back? That sounds scary. Those pats on the back turns into punches to the face if they are ever found out.
Meh. I recently got a senior citizens discount without even asking for one, never mind being asked to provide proof. The €5 reduction wasn't really worth the bruise to my ego.
Depends on the person. Some use it as a finacial fraud, some feel inadequate so they want to invent themselves as a hero, and some just have mental problems.
I mean, I used to know a guy in the UK who constantly used to imply he'd been in the special forces and seen some action. He absolutely hadn't, and we all thought he was an asshole for this and many other reasons.
I'd say I wonder if we knew the same guy but I'm sure there's a tonne of daft bullshitter blokes out there who claim they have done special ops shit despite being like 23 and never having left their home town.
We had a weird one, where there was this guy I knew who did unarmed combat training for the army. He was chill, never bragged about anything, but he also did private martial arts training, and the guys he taught wouldn't fucking shut up about him. One time one of the idiots told me Terry knew 10 ways to kill a man with a piece of paper. And I'm like, I'm sure Terry knows more than that number of ways to kill a man without a piece of paper, why would a piece of paper be involved?
I was in Washington a couple of years back and they had some kind of parade day. Loads of high school marching bands. There was also a massive military presence. Lads doing that majorette routine, twirling their wee guns about, stalls set up with assault rifles for the kids to play with, loads of marching and shouting and salutes and laaaaand of the freeee stuff.
I’ve seen military recruitment stalls in the UK but it just seems different over there. It’s more like full-on propaganda.
Then there’s the way some of the public behave. I saw a bunch of fellas stand up and salute at a basketball game for the entire national anthem. I watched a kid run across the road to shake some random guy in uniforms hand - “thank you for your service sir!”.
It would be more accurate to say that the term is American and is used primarily if not exclusively for people faking military service and/or rank and/or achievements.
The concept of presenting yourself as a higher status individual than you are is by no means an exclusively American phenomenon, nor is it confined to the military (fake doctors, fake lawyers, etc., etc.).
Well, it certainly does in the US, what with all the "thank you for your service" and best-military-in-the-world and so on.
I used "higher status" because someone faking to be something they're not is most likely doing so in order to cosplay something that (at least in their perception) is more distinguished or more respect-worthy or more glamorous than what they genuinely are.
The concept of stolen valour is almost exclusively American. And it’s weird as fuck
By concept of, do you mean that people pretending to be military is mostly American? Or that the thought it is crime in and of itself is mostly American?
I agree it's weird to pretend to be military, but people are weird the world over. In fact, earlier today I listened to a podcast today about military fakes in the UK. The last fellow is really something:
In manufacturing, where the candidate is from, if you have multiple shifts in your plant you use 24 hour time to avoid mistakes. Funnily enough in the big plant I worked in many years ago we would verbally use 12 hour time but written instructions were always in 24 hour time.
That’s true in the UK as well for the most part, but the above train would definitely get announced as the “fourteen forty-six service to Manchester Piccadilly”.
I used to work for Booking.com taxi department. I had (not that often but often enough that it stood out because it was only Americans who'd even argue) Americans argue with me about booking times. They were the ones who filled in the information, but somehow it was my fault they arrived at the airport at 6pm rather than the 6am they booked for?
And worst if I know the customer booked the wrong time slot, and I need to verify it directly with them before making any alterations, they then argue with me that I'm wrong about AM/PM or 24 hour clock. I've had a customer tell me that AM/PM was too confusing, so I switched to 24 hour clock and she huffed at that as well because it was 'military time'. I'm sorry miss, I left my sundial at home, I'm all out of options to confirm the correct time.
In most other countries the army teaches you to dodge bullets and elementary school teaches you to tell the time. In America it's the other way around.
I've used twenty-four hour time on my phone and computer ever since the early 2000s. When you work overnight, it keeps you from getting the wrong half of a day at a glance.
And no, stolen valor would be if the interviewee had lied and given a place of service.
Really, so the position is open? I have to network this, i see big developments in the heavenly hiring manager field, we need to get marketing on it ASAP. Maybe we can get a deal with Morgan Freeman?
Whatever, man. I learned the NATO phonetic alphabet because it’s fucking useful, not because I’m a pilot or I was in the military. Is that stolen valor? 🤦♂️
Many corporations use 24 hour time. No it wouldn’t be stolen valor. That would be a stupid accusation, and I wouldn’t want to work for anyone who would accuse me of that to begin with.
Many fields like logistics, use 24 hour time because things are moving and shipping 24 hours a day. Also 1400, fourteen hundred, is not fortune hundred, that might’ve been a typo for them.
I went on a cruise around Caribbean a few years ago. Ship had thousands of yanks obviously.
The cruise do this dress up night where everyone is wearing tuxedos, suits, party dresses etc
There were a few Yanks in full military dress.
"Wankers" I thought, and still do.
The other Yanks were practically fighting each other to thank these military guys for their service. I've never seen anything like it. It was some of the worse virtue signalling I have seen in my entire life. Absolutely sickening displays.
There is no draft so anyone who serves in the United States military does so voluntarily.
Thank you for your service probably was never said to a military member until sometime after the first Gulf war. I have heard veterans from before that say they certainly never heard it
It is my opinion that there is a more accurate translation for what thank you for your service means
American here, and it’s shit like this that embarrasses the fuck out of me.
I was a nurse in the US, and we use the 24 hour clock in the majority of healthcare settings.
I greatly prefer it to using AM/PM, and continue to use it day to day.
(And for the most part, I will say 1400 vs 2pm. I now live in the UK, and most people I know here will alternate between the two).
The entire world calls it a 24 hour clock. Your West Point Grad should know this if they spend 10 minutes overseas. And how the fuck is it stolen valor? Looks like you guys were just looking for a reason to be offended.
As someone who works in Healthcare this is the norm as well. We use the 24 hour clock because otherwise charting and documenting would be a disaster, medication times would get confused and patients wouldn't get their medication on time or be given double etc etc.
Because I use it all day everyday at work, I tend to bring it into my everyday life as well and do so without thinking.
an american came into my old work at a cinema in australia and asked me if we have a vet discount. i’m standing there thinking “why the fuck would we give animal doctors cheap movie tickets?”. theyre so weird w their military stuff.
Am American and use the 24 hr clock for most things.
But please forgive my ignorance. I’ve wondered. Say you are meeting for dinner at 8pm. Do you say you’ll see them at 8 or 20:00. I know from context clues that you would pm if you just said 8. But I’m just curious.
In my country you can use both interchangeably and no one will find it strange. 20:00 will be preferred by most when written and 8 when spoken. Also when we use 12h time instead of 24h we don't use AM/PM - either it's just the number determined by context, or we add morning/afternoon/evening.
Also in the case of trains/buses/flights etc where they have a very specific time, it's not unusual to actually say the 24 hour version. Like "twenty-thirty-two" for an 20.32 train for example.
In France you would just say vingt heures (vingt is twenty). In England you would just say eight in the evening but it depends on the setting. In hospitals they will use 24 hour time on paper.
In the context of having meal plans, I would say "I've booked the table for 8" or something similar, or see you at 8 for the meal at insert name here restaurant and everyone just knows I mean 8pm. Since no one will assume I've booked a table at a restaurant for 8am to eat pasta or pizza.
Courage in the face of danger would be valour if you’re helping or rescuing someone.
Going to sovereign countries to kill farmers and peasants for profit isn’t at all. Sure the soldier isn’t making the majority of the profit.
You’re just doing a job it’s no more important than anyone else’s job therefore you don’t deserve special praise for it. Oil rig workers are killed and maimed regularly and will help each other or go above beyond in the face of danger do they get a discount? Divers, cavers, even teachers why don’t teachers get thanked for their service? Half of them have probably seen more live action than half the armed forces.
The rest of the world realises this and so doesn’t give any special treatment or automatic presumption of valour to their armed forces. It’s weird as fuck Americans do!
The first time I heard the term 'military time' I thought it was something complicated, like the navy using 7 bells for example. Nope; just ordinary time. Like many others I use both
American here and served, no not stolen valor. FFS, it bothers me how basic stuff gets twisted into something it’s not. A lot of healthcare organizations use 24 hour time to avoid confusion when patients need care, meds, etc. A lot of other organizations use it for similar reasons. It is literally why the military uses it! SMH.
I use 24hr time. My job in the railways uses it. We also use the phonetic alphabet in all our comms. Never served in the armed services. This seems to me to be a distinctly US centric problem.
Work at a job in the US that has 3 shifts so we use 2:00 and 14:00 to tell the difference. It’s not hard to figure out. The hiring manager is a stuck up idiot who’s embarrassing themselves by getting wound up over what to call a 24 clock.
Funny thing is most of the world uses the 24h format for time because there is a less likely chance to mess up the time with someone says 6-0’clock we meet up for drinks and the European is confused about drinking in the early morning.
In Canada it's what the bus schedule is in. My phone's in 24 hour time because during uni and college I was using the bus a lot and now I'm used to it.
It is arguably the superior time system, because I don't have to remember which is 12 PM and which is 12AM, because I always have to think for that one.
I worked in IT my entire career and if you needed to coordinate when a project or technical event needed to occur you used 24 hour clock and the timezone. What a ignorant and uniformed post.
The context massively depends on whether I use 24hr or casual 2 o clock.
If I'm talking to wife about her shifts or my shifts at work it's 24hr clock. If we're talking about appointments it's 24hr clock.
If it's what time the party starts, it's 3 o clock.
I don't understand why there's this obsession with it being military time. The 24hr clock is great when you need to ensure there's no ambiguity around am or pm without the need to write our the time and then add the am or the pm.
This is so unbelievably stupid and at the same time funny as hell. The US are really the definition of the main character syndrome itself. ‚Military time‘….lol…nearly the whole rest of the world simply calls it time, as the 24hrs clock is the absolute standard outside the muricans brain dead isle.
Americans are weird... Stolen Valor... idolizing people from the military. And at the same time they do not care in the slightest for veterans as soon they have any problem coming from the military service and the connected experiences.
The guy explicitly said he was never in the military yet is accused of pretending to be a veteran. Make it make sense.
Right? Absolutely mental to still call it stolen valour and even fucking deny him a job.
Although I guess they've done him a favour because I wouldn't want to work for someone like that.
First- I respect people that fought for their country (even if that country was North Korea), and empathise with their PTSD and other scars. The way veterans are treated isnt good, being left broken and homeless, and a day of remembrance is good.
However. USA's obsession with veterans is so odd. It is continually at war, so I guess theres a lot of them, but still.
USA is the only country that I know of that frequently gives store discounts to people because they used to work in the military. There are tributes at college football games, and flyovers, as well as corporate lipservice in their advertisements. It has multiple holidays for them (2 out of the 11 public holidays). Thats more than Jesus or the constitution gets.
Does America worship the military more than anything else (except the flag but a lot of that is tied up in military rites and regulations)?
A lot of it is a big cultural swing after how Vietnam vets were treated and represented during and immediately post war. They were treated as blood thirsty baby killing conquistadors (which did happen). But most were just poor, got drafted or pressured by family to serve. As a nation the guilt caused the mentality to swing an equally unhealthy amount the other way.
It is propaganda, the lessons the Vietnam war taught were about never letting the public see all the heinous shit soldiers get up to. The flyovers and shit is all military funded propaganda.
It also has a lot to do with military service being voluntary in the states combined with the government treats vets like shit. The more people see through the promised benefits that aren’t worth the risks to life and physical and mental health, if you even get them in the first place, the more they have to push the “support our hero troops” narrative to lure poor suckers in out of a sense of honor.
“I’d like to purchase this item from your counter”
“You’re trying to steal it?”
“No, I have money”
“Hello, police?”
Get some employment laws too.
Also if his work uses the 24hr clock then it's completely reasonable. I write my dates in the normal international order (9 Dec 2025) at work because we work with people in Europe and it's the most clear way. I'm not pretending to be European.
Americans call it military time.
The rest of the world calls it the 24 hour clock.
Especially anyone who works in a job where shifts can start any time in the 24h cycle, from pilots and flight attendants to doctors and nurses . . . to people who work in manufacturing, as the applicant did. The hiring manager is being an idiot.
Or all of europe
Do most of Europe say "let's meet at 14"? Norwegians don't at least. We'd write it, but we say "let's meet at 2".
In germany, both is possible. Casual conversation where the time of day is obvious (like, the lunch date at 2 will not be 2 hours past midnight), going by the 12h-cycle numbers is totally fine. But saying "14 Uhr" (basicly 14 o'clock) is just as fine.
Exactly same in Denmark. People say both interchangeably, occasionally preferring the 24 hour version for clarity if there can be doubt.
Same in France. Casual can go either way, and formal is most likely 24h format for clarity, but everyone understands it either way
Brazillian here, same
In casual comversations, you can use 12 hours format, but in writing, formal conversation or any other interaction where you need to be sure theres no doubt about the hour, you use 24h clock
Drinks at 9 or a business meeting at 11 are deducible from context. Flights or trains are better given in 24 hour format, lest one member of the party ends up stranded.
Drinks at 9 or a business meeting at 11 , in my industry they could mean either still.
Same in Romania - and when I was in the US far too many people freaked out about my digital watch being set to 24hrs - you'd think it was a grave insult to them to have to count past 12...
Joining the same train, Norway
In Ireland, it would be really odd for someone to say 14.00. In text form, I've never had or seen an issue with it. Most of our timetables and such would be in 24hr.
The same in British English.
No, but we can all see 14:00 and instantly know it means 2pm.
Unlike one nation's citizens we don't start counting on our fingers or crying about "military time".
I remember seeing a post on here ages ago where the American heard "quarter past" and thought that meant 25 minutes past. They really struggle with letters and numbers over there.
That's some serious innumeracy there.
Wasn't it also the guy that was saying something like "why are we using currency, what next, one dollar thirty past 6?"
Yes because to them a "quarter" is a coin with a value of 25¢, and they completely missed learning that it's both called that and has that value because it's one quarter of a dollar.
its because they don't call 1/4 a quarter, they call it a fourth
And they don't understand that a fourth is a smaller value than a third.
Im german and "lets meet at 15" and "lets meet at 3" is basically interchangeable (if the context makes it clear 3 in the afternoon is intended - like obviously Im not having a work meeting at 3 am)
Unless, ofcourse, you're working in a business where 24/7 operation is normal, in which case you would use the 24h form to avoid confusion because then the meeting might very well take place at 03:00 in the morning.
In normal conversation though, you simply read and say 3 to mean 15:00 and 7 to mean 19:00 without thinking. It's mind-boggling how millions of people can't wrap their heads around this, while at the same time arguing that 5280 is a perfectly sane number to use for conversion.
In my country (Hungary) in speaking it is perfectly normal to use both, and they are used equally. In writing, most of the time is is the 24h format.
In Poland we use both. Personally I don't have preference. Sometimes I'll say 16, sometimes 4. Although when speaking English I always use am/pm as this sounds better in my head.
I generally write the time as, say, 1400, but would actually say 2 o'clock. I guess it's the circumstances? At work, which runs 24/7, I'd always use the 24 hour clock for paperwork, just to reduce potential confusion. If I'm meeting friends, 2 o'clock would be fine. (They'd know I meant 2pm. I'm getting old and am definitely asleep by 2am!)
In Finland we commonly use both styles as in ”half past six” or ”eighteen thirty”
I work in transit and we use 24 hour time
I write 14:00, but I say two o’clock. I’ve never heard anyone say fourteen hundred.
Or in this case Fortune hundred
Yes, that was the icing on the cake.
This post was already pretty much ‘Peak ‘Murica’ but that little detail makes it my favourite post in this subreddit
As it’s nearly Christmas, I was going to overlook what is obviously an autocorrect.
But why would anyone schedule a dentist appointment at 14:00, when 30 minutes later they could have “tooth hurty”?
There is a mini mall in my area that has three doctors in it, a podiatrist, head specialist, and dentist.
The plots that thier offices are in are named "Toe Acres", "Head Acres", and "Tooth Acres".
Definitely say things like "sixteen thirty-four" when referring to train times, and I believe the automated announcements do too.
Yeah this is how its often used in my neck of the woods as well, but not always.
Yeah. Brits tend to say stuff like that out loud because of the railway.
Yeah, in my experience, if you're giving the time to the hour or a standard fraction (quarter past, 20 past, half past, 20 to quarter to, O'clock...) then you use the 12 hour clock, and if you're giving it to the exact minute then a lot of people will just swap to the 24hr clock without even thinking about it.
My native language is not English, but I write 14:00 while I use the equivalent of "two o clock" and "fourteen o clock" interchangeably, mostly using the latter for context. I'll also occasionally say something like "zero two o clock" to emphasize that I mean two at night (02:00) and not two in the afternoon.
I don't use "hundreds" for time.
Same in mine, except the "zero two o clock", we just add the "am" equivalent, literally "two of the morning"
Oh I think many/most people actually do say "in the morning" / "in the afternoon" here too, maybe it's mostly me who just likes "zero two" because it's shorter.
If I started saying (or writing) "AM/PM" I think a lot of people wouldn't understand it, I didn't really get it either until I was an adult. I still have to think a bit about whether "12AM/PM" is midday or midnight.
In Swedish we'd say fourteen zero zero, because the Swedish word for zero only has one syllable so it's super quick. It's like fourteen oh oh.
But you could just say two o'clock as well if it was obvious by context.
In Dutch zero has only one syllable too, but if needed we just add the part of the day (which most of the time adds two syllables). It’s about the only time we get to use genitives anymore.
In the UK we use "o" as zero sometimes. For example, we would say it's "three oh five" for 3:05 and for 15:05.
What about just fourteen?
No need to add the zeroes, where I'm from people primarily separate the 2 numbers. So 1430 becomes fourteen thirdy.
Only on American shows on television. None of the Brits I ever spoke to said that. I’ve heard those versions in German, but only from people who speak it as a second language. I also never heard it in Dutch. If there is any question which 2 o’clock we mean, we just add either “at night” or “in the afternoon”.
British people will say fourteen in contexts like this: I'm catching the 14:28 [train] to London.
Yes I was going to comment this. The only time I (British) would say 24h time out loud would be for transport timetables (bus, plane, train)
I use it in writing all the time, especially if dealing with time over noon (eg, I'm free for a meeting between 10-12, 13-16 sort of thing)
Then we may follow up by saying “it’s half past one now so we have just under an hour”. Also we might say that the station is 1/2 a mile away but there’s a Starbucks in 100 metres - I’ve only put 10 litres of fuel in the car but it does 35 mpg. Brits are effing brilliant!
Maybe Dutch uses it for announcing trains too. I haven’t taken a Dutch train in years. It makes sense. Spoken we would still say “the train of two before half three (in the afternoon)”.
What is this madness "two before half three" ???
I'm Danish amd obviously we say the fourteen thirty in Danish as well. Never heard it in English either from a native English speaker.
People also use 2 o clock to mean 14 interchangeably, and use the same "afternoon or middle of the night?!".
If you write, people expect 24 hour clock though. No one is going to agree with you if you write "let's meet at 2" to mean 14.
German here and I know lots of people who use "2 Uhr" and "14 Uhr" interchangeably, all of whom are native speakers.
In Italian it's quite normal to say 14, 18, 20, 21 etc in spoken conversation.
I used it when writing the time down on a checksheet, and noticed others started doing it too. I have a coworker who can't read 24 hour clocks. I prefer it ever since I was 7 years old and we had a VCR with a 24 clock. I taught myself how to read it because of the VCR.
When you say taught yourself to read it, isn't it easier? 0-24 ....
Italian. I either say "two" or "fourteen", no need to tell that's is "fourteen and zero minutes". WTF is fourteen hundred???
Its not that uncommon to call it 14 though. At least in Sweden
In Poland we say either. 14:00 can be said as two o'clock, or as fourteenth hour. It's interchangeable and no one has an issue, but Americans can't count past twelve.
Well, in Germany you write 14:00 and call it either "Zwei Uhr (nachmittags)" (literally two o'clock (afternoon)) or indeed "Vierzehn Uhr" (literally 14 o'clock), but nope, no ones says fourteen hundred.
We in finland do sometimes say "14 o'clock"
Edit. Sounds better in finnish, i promise :D
Of course not, folk don't just go about stealing people's valour.
You've never been on a train?
I’d say ”fourteen oh oh” or just ”fourteen”. Translated directly from how we say it in Swedish. Or sometimes two. It all depends. Fourteen for unambiguity, two if it’s really obvious from the context what time I mean.
Not like that, but maybe a confused German who thinks that just the American way of spelling 24h format times? Never witnessed that, but we use stuff like "2", "2 in the afternoon" and "14 o clock" (or "quarter before three" and "fourteen - fourtyfive" for another example) very interchangeably, although with a bias towards 12h format since that's usually enough information and shorter.
We do at my workplace but we have someone over the radio giving us a time so it makes sense to just say fourteen hundred cause that's what we gotta write down
In Denmark we would for sure say "let's meet fourteen thirty to go shopping" or "the party is klokken 19" in german that would be "um 19 uhr", does not have an english direct translation, I guess.
Americans call it military time.
The rest of the world calls it time.
We call it digital time because it’s mostly on digital clock.
Right?? This drives me crazy...the military isn't even the only "entity" who uses "military time"...so does basically everyone in the medical field lol. Should we alternatively call it "doctor time"?
Not to mention, it just makes more sense than a 12 hour clock, even for us civilians. They can't gatekeep my easy way to tell time 😂
I have never read such an idiotic comment as that stolen Valor shit in the screenshot. WTF military time … as you say normal people just call it a 24 hour clock.
The guy who didn’t get the job should sue for discrimination and definitely NOT take a job at a place where the IQ level is room temperature.
The rest of the world calls it "the time"
I was in the military, I say 24 hour time and use it all the time. All my digital clocks are 24hr. Always have. Even before joining the army.
Strange. We just call it time.
The concept of stolen valour is almost exclusively American. And it’s weird as fuck
My dad was drafted to the military during the Vietnam war. He hated it and told me never to join the military.
I don’t get why people go around telling or pretending to be or were in the military. What exactly do they get out of it
In the US, discounts and pats on the back, from what I gather.
American fetishization of violence. People robbed of their power by their government and the corporate interests it serves, desperate enough to feel powerful that they'll feign service to the very government that took it. It's absolutely wild, not unlike r/malesurvivingspace ... Guys crashing on couch cushions in an abandoned garage but has $6k in semiautomatic anti personnel rifles. Like, every day, several times a day, posts like that. Even if it's just people being silly, 30-50 feral hogs must be a threat every third household.
A good portion of these just look homeless though
It is cringey as fuck. Very, very American.
And entitlement for the spouses it seems
Discounts require proof. My dad had a card that said he was a veteran. No idea if he ever used it outside the VA (hospitals/doctors for veterans basically). As for pats on the back? That sounds scary. Those pats on the back turns into punches to the face if they are ever found out.
Meh. I recently got a senior citizens discount without even asking for one, never mind being asked to provide proof. The €5 reduction wasn't really worth the bruise to my ego.
You just get continuous "thank you for your service" compliments until you die.
Depends on the person. Some use it as a finacial fraud, some feel inadequate so they want to invent themselves as a hero, and some just have mental problems.
After Vietnam and definitely after 9/11 there was a shift in how the public a expected to view military personnel and veterans.
As a veteran my guess is that any stolen valor types want to feel special and tell made up stories about heroics they would never do.
Honestly I don't bring up my veteran status or that stuff unless someone asks. Though I do hit up a few places for free food on veterans day
The rest of world also say “I was in the military” without expecting to get sucked off for it.
I mean, I used to know a guy in the UK who constantly used to imply he'd been in the special forces and seen some action. He absolutely hadn't, and we all thought he was an asshole for this and many other reasons.
I'd say I wonder if we knew the same guy but I'm sure there's a tonne of daft bullshitter blokes out there who claim they have done special ops shit despite being like 23 and never having left their home town.
Ha, yes, but we don't piss about saying 'stolen valor' we say "that wanker who pretends to be in the SAS" Americans are so mealy mouthed 🤣
But can he kill you in fourteen different ways with a plastic spork ?
We had a weird one, where there was this guy I knew who did unarmed combat training for the army. He was chill, never bragged about anything, but he also did private martial arts training, and the guys he taught wouldn't fucking shut up about him. One time one of the idiots told me Terry knew 10 ways to kill a man with a piece of paper. And I'm like, I'm sure Terry knows more than that number of ways to kill a man without a piece of paper, why would a piece of paper be involved?
If you use a GPS it’s stolen valor too I guess.
And driving a hummer or wearing camouflage clothing.
or use the internet
I was in Washington a couple of years back and they had some kind of parade day. Loads of high school marching bands. There was also a massive military presence. Lads doing that majorette routine, twirling their wee guns about, stalls set up with assault rifles for the kids to play with, loads of marching and shouting and salutes and laaaaand of the freeee stuff.
I’ve seen military recruitment stalls in the UK but it just seems different over there. It’s more like full-on propaganda.
Then there’s the way some of the public behave. I saw a bunch of fellas stand up and salute at a basketball game for the entire national anthem. I watched a kid run across the road to shake some random guy in uniforms hand - “thank you for your service sir!”.
It looks like fetishisation and made me cringe.
It would be more accurate to say that the term is American and is used primarily if not exclusively for people faking military service and/or rank and/or achievements.
The concept of presenting yourself as a higher status individual than you are is by no means an exclusively American phenomenon, nor is it confined to the military (fake doctors, fake lawyers, etc., etc.).
...being in the military confers "higher status" to you? It's a job, like any other, just one prone to more misfits.
Well, it certainly does in the US, what with all the "thank you for your service" and best-military-in-the-world and so on.
I used "higher status" because someone faking to be something they're not is most likely doing so in order to cosplay something that (at least in their perception) is more distinguished or more respect-worthy or more glamorous than what they genuinely are.
The term “stolen valour” is American, we have cases of people impersonating military personnel here in the UK too:
Man, 64, arrested after reports of ‘impostor’ dressed as rear admiral at Remembrance event in Wales
But we don't have a culture of sucking off the armed forces like they do
He was pretending to be in the navy, sucking off is implied
By concept of, do you mean that people pretending to be military is mostly American? Or that the thought it is crime in and of itself is mostly American?
I agree it's weird to pretend to be military, but people are weird the world over. In fact, earlier today I listened to a podcast today about military fakes in the UK. The last fellow is really something:
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/270-the-true-crime-enthusiast-28826247/episode/you-deserve-a-medal-for-that-237232860/?cmp=android_share&sc=android_social_share&pr=false
Hospitals use it too - otherwise how do we distinguish between your 2am or 2pm dose of medication?
In manufacturing, where the candidate is from, if you have multiple shifts in your plant you use 24 hour time to avoid mistakes. Funnily enough in the big plant I worked in many years ago we would verbally use 12 hour time but written instructions were always in 24 hour time.
Is that not what everybody does? It is 3 o'clock, not 15.
You’d need to know how to add and take away 12 though. Thats really really difficult for Americans. They generally only have 10 fingers.
I use both, sometimes in very close proximity like:
Be there around at three or 1530.
I work at an airport. We use it too. Easier and quicker to say 23:45 and know you're talking about 15 minutes before midnight.
Like metric, the 24 h clock is just a simpler system with less potential for errors.
fortune hundred, eh?
also imagine not being hired, because the interviewer is a bootlicker too dumb to tell the time.
the day has 24 hours!
That post is so violently American, I'm at a loss for words. Post it to r/LinkedInLunatics
I assumed that was the sub this was in.
Oooh new sub to scroll on the toilet. Thanks!
The people who call this military time must never have flown in an aircraft.
The travel industry universally uses the 24 hour clock.
If your booking states flight departs at 20:00 hrs, you know to turn up for an 8pm flight, not an 8am flight.
Its standard almost everywhere in UK. Here, for example is a screenshot of a train booking app.
https://preview.redd.it/e6wy1qmfrb6g1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1ae5ee635247025ed0d4ca57616a96c0445840c3
In my country, written time is always 24-hour, but spoken time is usually 12-hour.
That’s true in the UK as well for the most part, but the above train would definitely get announced as the “fourteen forty-six service to Manchester Piccadilly”.
".... Has been canceled and a bus replacement service is in operation."
They’ve never competed a full adult education.
I used to work for Booking.com taxi department. I had (not that often but often enough that it stood out because it was only Americans who'd even argue) Americans argue with me about booking times. They were the ones who filled in the information, but somehow it was my fault they arrived at the airport at 6pm rather than the 6am they booked for?
And worst if I know the customer booked the wrong time slot, and I need to verify it directly with them before making any alterations, they then argue with me that I'm wrong about AM/PM or 24 hour clock. I've had a customer tell me that AM/PM was too confusing, so I switched to 24 hour clock and she huffed at that as well because it was 'military time'. I'm sorry miss, I left my sundial at home, I'm all out of options to confirm the correct time.
What do they say in America then if they don’t like am/pm. Do they specify “in the morning” or “in the afternoon”?
The trucking industry does too
Lol my dad was in the airforce, merchant navy, was radio officer for an airport and a private pilot instructor.
I heard a lot of 24 hour clock times because well he had years of it being important.
I don't really understand why some people call it "military time", really it's just simpler way of telling time
That's what the yanks call it, probably to try and confuse themselves since the rest of the world understands both iterations
Imagine missing out on a job because the employer is an idiot.
Bullet dodged IMO
In most other countries the army teaches you to dodge bullets and elementary school teaches you to tell the time. In America it's the other way around.
I've used twenty-four hour time on my phone and computer ever since the early 2000s. When you work overnight, it keeps you from getting the wrong half of a day at a glance.
And no, stolen valor would be if the interviewee had lied and given a place of service.
I have used 24 hour time on my phone ever since that night 12 years ago when I set my alarm for 6pm instead of am.
There won't be a single hiring manager in heaven
Really, so the position is open? I have to network this, i see big developments in the heavenly hiring manager field, we need to get marketing on it ASAP. Maybe we can get a deal with Morgan Freeman?
What is actually wrong with these people
Stolen valor for using 24h based time? WTF? Gotta go get a appointment at my free doctor might have cancer from this post.
Was this written by a fortune year old?
Whatever, man. I learned the NATO phonetic alphabet because it’s fucking useful, not because I’m a pilot or I was in the military. Is that stolen valor? 🤦♂️
The NATO phonetic alphabet is the ICAO's phonetic alphabet in any case, so civilian in origin
Many corporations use 24 hour time. No it wouldn’t be stolen valor. That would be a stupid accusation, and I wouldn’t want to work for anyone who would accuse me of that to begin with.
Many fields like logistics, use 24 hour time because things are moving and shipping 24 hours a day. Also 1400, fourteen hundred, is not fortune hundred, that might’ve been a typo for them.
Bros. Is it illegal to count past 12?
I went on a cruise around Caribbean a few years ago. Ship had thousands of yanks obviously.
The cruise do this dress up night where everyone is wearing tuxedos, suits, party dresses etc
There were a few Yanks in full military dress.
"Wankers" I thought, and still do.
The other Yanks were practically fighting each other to thank these military guys for their service. I've never seen anything like it. It was some of the worse virtue signalling I have seen in my entire life. Absolutely sickening displays.
They are a strange breed.
There is no draft so anyone who serves in the United States military does so voluntarily.
Thank you for your service probably was never said to a military member until sometime after the first Gulf war. I have heard veterans from before that say they certainly never heard it
It is my opinion that there is a more accurate translation for what thank you for your service means
Better you than me
Well, there goes the dumbest Linkedin post I’ve read this week, and that’s saying a lot.
American here, and it’s shit like this that embarrasses the fuck out of me. I was a nurse in the US, and we use the 24 hour clock in the majority of healthcare settings. I greatly prefer it to using AM/PM, and continue to use it day to day. (And for the most part, I will say 1400 vs 2pm. I now live in the UK, and most people I know here will alternate between the two).
Im pretty sure US is the only place they call it military time. To me it’s the 24hr clock. And any/everyone knows what it means.
My god, these people are absolute twats
Stolen Valor? Bitch, I should get a medal for dealing with people that are to stupid to use a system that goes above 12.
The entire world calls it a 24 hour clock. Your West Point Grad should know this if they spend 10 minutes overseas. And how the fuck is it stolen valor? Looks like you guys were just looking for a reason to be offended.
Somebody tell me when it's fortune o'clock. I'm sick of being poor.
They're so weird. Stolen valour for using the twenty-four hour clock? Ridiculous.
As someone who works in Healthcare this is the norm as well. We use the 24 hour clock because otherwise charting and documenting would be a disaster, medication times would get confused and patients wouldn't get their medication on time or be given double etc etc.
Because I use it all day everyday at work, I tend to bring it into my everyday life as well and do so without thinking.
This poster is ridiculous.
an american came into my old work at a cinema in australia and asked me if we have a vet discount. i’m standing there thinking “why the fuck would we give animal doctors cheap movie tickets?”. theyre so weird w their military stuff.
Did that interviewer gatekeep 24-hour time? That’s so weird.
Am American and use the 24 hr clock for most things.
But please forgive my ignorance. I’ve wondered. Say you are meeting for dinner at 8pm. Do you say you’ll see them at 8 or 20:00. I know from context clues that you would pm if you just said 8. But I’m just curious.
In my country you can use both interchangeably and no one will find it strange. 20:00 will be preferred by most when written and 8 when spoken. Also when we use 12h time instead of 24h we don't use AM/PM - either it's just the number determined by context, or we add morning/afternoon/evening.
UK, you'd say "see you at eight" and hope they're smart enough to figure out that dinner isn't at 8am
If it's not evident through context clues you'd say PM or AM
Also in the case of trains/buses/flights etc where they have a very specific time, it's not unusual to actually say the 24 hour version. Like "twenty-thirty-two" for an 20.32 train for example.
If I was confused which 8 was dinner time, id chrck my passport to see if said I was american.
But, in a serious answer... if I was confused id double check they meant pm, but context is key and I would know that dinner isnt breakfast.
When speaking it's just eight, when typing it's 20:00, or in this case 8 would also do, since nobody goes out for dinner at 08:00 hours.
Any time is Dinner time.
In France you would just say vingt heures (vingt is twenty). In England you would just say eight in the evening but it depends on the setting. In hospitals they will use 24 hour time on paper.
In the context of having meal plans, I would say "I've booked the table for 8" or something similar, or see you at 8 for the meal at insert name here restaurant and everyone just knows I mean 8pm. Since no one will assume I've booked a table at a restaurant for 8am to eat pasta or pizza.
You'd get more confusion with using the term "dinner" when obviously it's tea at 8pm
Courage in the face of danger would be valour if you’re helping or rescuing someone.
Going to sovereign countries to kill farmers and peasants for profit isn’t at all. Sure the soldier isn’t making the majority of the profit.
You’re just doing a job it’s no more important than anyone else’s job therefore you don’t deserve special praise for it. Oil rig workers are killed and maimed regularly and will help each other or go above beyond in the face of danger do they get a discount? Divers, cavers, even teachers why don’t teachers get thanked for their service? Half of them have probably seen more live action than half the armed forces.
The rest of the world realises this and so doesn’t give any special treatment or automatic presumption of valour to their armed forces. It’s weird as fuck Americans do!
Lol hiring manager is a nutcase. Dude dodged a bullet
The first time I heard the term 'military time' I thought it was something complicated, like the navy using 7 bells for example. Nope; just ordinary time. Like many others I use both
This. I’ve only ever heard Americans use military time as a phrase. I’ve always just known it as a 24 hour clock thing.
American here and served, no not stolen valor. FFS, it bothers me how basic stuff gets twisted into something it’s not. A lot of healthcare organizations use 24 hour time to avoid confusion when patients need care, meds, etc. A lot of other organizations use it for similar reasons. It is literally why the military uses it! SMH.
Everyone in Europe expresses time like this.
IT careerists use 24 hour time. Medical people use 24 hour time. It's never been limited to the US military.
I use 24hr time. My job in the railways uses it. We also use the phonetic alphabet in all our comms. Never served in the armed services. This seems to me to be a distinctly US centric problem.
No.
Use of the 24-hour clock is not stolen valor. Just because the military uses the 24-hour clock, that doesn’t make it “military time.”
I grew up an Army brat in Europe. Im frustrated by people in the US who don’t use the 24h clock.
Work at a job in the US that has 3 shifts so we use 2:00 and 14:00 to tell the difference. It’s not hard to figure out. The hiring manager is a stuck up idiot who’s embarrassing themselves by getting wound up over what to call a 24 clock.
I think I lost IQ points from reading that drivel.
Funny thing is most of the world uses the 24h format for time because there is a less likely chance to mess up the time with someone says 6-0’clock we meet up for drinks and the European is confused about drinking in the early morning.
90% of the contents on this Sub are stolen valour.
"Our military is the toughest"
"we beat the British"
Yeah, the poster didn't do it. Not remotely.
Someone actively looking for reasons to be offended
It’s no more stolen valour than using a jet engine or a bow and arrow…. What bollocks
Fortune hundred. Is that a typo or do the US military have cute names for numbers like bingo callers?
In Canada it's what the bus schedule is in. My phone's in 24 hour time because during uni and college I was using the bus a lot and now I'm used to it.
It is arguably the superior time system, because I don't have to remember which is 12 PM and which is 12AM, because I always have to think for that one.
Don’t be European or you aren’t getting hired.
I think that candidate was forteenate not to get the job.
I worked in IT my entire career and if you needed to coordinate when a project or technical event needed to occur you used 24 hour clock and the timezone. What a ignorant and uniformed post.
“It came up in the debrief.”
Debrief? Are you allowed to use that terminology if you didn’t serve in the military?
I would expect it is pretty common in engineering, especially anything adjacent to defense (which is a considerable amount of US engineering);
The context massively depends on whether I use 24hr or casual 2 o clock.
If I'm talking to wife about her shifts or my shifts at work it's 24hr clock. If we're talking about appointments it's 24hr clock.
If it's what time the party starts, it's 3 o clock.
I don't understand why there's this obsession with it being military time. The 24hr clock is great when you need to ensure there's no ambiguity around am or pm without the need to write our the time and then add the am or the pm.
Bloody hell, I do sometimes forget
1) how incredibly stupid LinkedIn is. 2) how dumb some Americans are.
This is so unbelievably stupid and at the same time funny as hell. The US are really the definition of the main character syndrome itself. ‚Military time‘….lol…nearly the whole rest of the world simply calls it time, as the 24hrs clock is the absolute standard outside the muricans brain dead isle.
Their first mistake is thinking military time and 24hr clock are the same thing
Americans are weird... Stolen Valor... idolizing people from the military. And at the same time they do not care in the slightest for veterans as soon they have any problem coming from the military service and the connected experiences.