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12-hour clock
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===Informal speech and rounding off=== In speaking, it is common to round the time to the nearest five minutes and/or express the time as the past (or to) the closest hour; for example, "five past five" (5:05). Minutes ''past'' the hour means those minutes are added to the hour; "ten past five" means 5:10. Minutes ''to, 'til'' and ''of'' the hour mean those minutes are subtracted; "ten of five", "ten 'til five", and "ten to five" all mean 4:50. Fifteen minutes is often called a ''quarter hour'', and thirty minutes is often known as a ''half hour''. For example, 5:15 can be phrased "(a) quarter past five" or "five-fifteen"; 5:30 can be "half past five", "five-thirty" or simply "half five". The time 8:45 may be spoken as "eight forty-five" or "(a) quarter to nine".<ref>{{cite dictionary|title=quarter|dictionary=American Heritage Dictionary|edition=3rd|location=Boston|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|date=1992}} s.v. usage note at end of "quarter" entry.</ref> In some languages, e.g. Polish, rounding off is mandatory when using (spoken) 12-hour clock, but disallowed when using 24 hour notation. I.e. 15:12 might be pronounced as "quarter past three" or "fifteen-twelve", but ''not'' "three-twelve" or "quarter past fifteen".<ref>{{cite web |title=Określanie godzin i minut |url=https://sjp.pwn.pl/poradnia/haslo/Okreslanie-godzin-i-minut;19024.html |website=Słownik języka polskiego PWN |access-date=18 March 2025 |language=Polish}}</ref> In older English, it was common for the number 25 to be expressed as "five-and-twenty".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dickens |first1=Charles |title=Little Dorrit |date=1855 |page=Chapter 27}}</ref> In this way the time 8:35 might have been phrased as "five-and-twenty to 9",<ref>{{cite web |last1=Trudgill |first1=Peter |title=Number five-and-twenty: A fading linguistic practice |url=https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news-peter-trudgill-recounts-the-old-way-of-counting-80170/ |website=The New European |date=17 May 2020 |access-date=13 October 2022}}</ref> although this styling fell out of fashion in the later part of the 1900s and is now rarely used.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Swan |first1=Michael |title=Ask About English |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1535_questionanswer/page63.shtml |website=BBC World Service |publisher=BBC |access-date=13 January 2021}}</ref> Instead of meaning 5:30, the "half five" expression is sometimes used to mean 4:30, or "halfway to five", especially for regions such as the [[Midwestern United States|American Midwest]] and other areas that have been particularly [[German America|influenced by German culture]].{{cn|date=November 2023}} This meaning follows the pattern choices of many Germanic and [[Slavic languages]], including [[Serbo-Croatian]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]], [[Danish language|Danish]], [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]], and [[Swedish language|Swedish]], as well as [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Finnish language|Finnish]], and the languages of the [[Baltic states|Baltic States]]. Moreover, in situations where the relevant hour is obvious or has been recently mentioned, a speaker might omit the hour and just say "quarter to (the hour)", "half past" or "ten 'til" to avoid an elaborate sentence in informal conversations. These forms are often commonly used in television and radio broadcasts that cover multiple time zones at one-hour intervals.<ref>{{Cite magazine|magazine=TVTimes|date=21–27 May 1983|url=http://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/threads/8061-TVTimes-magazine-21-27-May-1983-part1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121018072904/http://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/threads/8061-TVTimes-magazine-21-27-May-1983-part1|archive-date=18 October 2012|url-status=live |title=TVTimes magazine 21-27 May 1983 part1 |access-date=8 October 2019}}</ref> In describing a vague time of day, a speaker might say the phrase "seven-thirty, eight" to mean sometime around 7:30 or 8:00. Such phrasing can be misinterpreted for a specific time of day (here 7:38), especially by a listener not expecting an estimation. The phrase "''about'' seven-thirty ''or'' eight" clarifies this. Some more ambiguous phrasing might be avoided. Within five minutes of the hour, the phrase "five of seven" (6:55) can be heard "five-oh-seven" (5:07). "Five ''to'' seven" or even "six fifty-five" clarifies this.
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