Why is it that Americans refer to 24 hour time as military time? I understand that the military uses the 24hr format but I don’t understand why the general public would refer to it like that?
It makes it seem like it’s a foreign concept where as in a lot of countries it’s the norm.
It’s called genericide. They encounter the 24 hour measure of time primarily through the US military and its service members so all 24 hour time generally gets called military time.
Similar to why facial tissue is often Kleenex or adhesive bandages are Band-aids in the US.
Here in California, I’ve heard both “military time” and “24 hour time” used interchangeably for writing the time as “03:45” or “16:20”. That said, I’ve heard – citation needed – that proper military time does not use the colon, such as “1600”, pronounced as “sixteen hundred hours”.
As for why the public might refer to this generally as “military time”, it may just be that that’s the most common, well-known use-case in the States, outside of the sciences. I personally use 24 hour time on all my devices, but I’ve come across many people who prefer clockfaces or AM/PM, probably out of habit.
As a fairly-new ham radio operator, I need to improve my numbers pronunciation so maybe I’ll start reading the time like that and see how other people react.
Already, I get a number of confused-then-resigned looks when saying “sixteen o’clock” haha
Because that’s exactly how we see it. It IS a completely foreign concept. The general public does not use 24hr at all. The only time we ever hear it, is when someone in the military says it.
I spent 20 years in the US military. I had to quickly learn “military time” in order to function, as we were taught 12-hr time growing up in school. I was surprised when I traveled the world and discovered that everyone else uses “military time” (read: international time) as well. I guess Americans just really wanna do their own thing.
I exclusively use military time nowadays. If someone doesn’t understand the time I stated, I’ll correct it to 12-hr time on the spot, as converting is super easy. Just count back 2 hours and drop the 10’s digit by one; e.g. 1600 = 4 PM. 2200 = 10 PM. Etc.
It is literally a foreign concept to the vast majority of them (only other countries use it widely in everyday life) and the military is one of the very few contexts in which they will experience it.
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