Having “our local noon is 0550pm” is dumb as rocks and nowhere comparable to time zones.
How is “our local noon is at 1200” any more objectively logical? Midnight is an objectively arbitrary time to start the new date. The best you can say is that it’s twelve hours before local noon, but even if you index off of local noon it doesn’t make any more logical sense to put the 0 while most people are asleep. Someone who hasn’t grown up with our clock might well say, “why would we choose a clock that puts the beginning of the usable part of the day at 6 or 7 for most people?” Calling the hour when people wake up 0000 or 0100 would make a lot of logical sense.
Unlike some people have prolly told you, not every idea is equal.
Numbers have no inherent meaning. We could make noon happen at 0000, 1200, 2200, whatever–and people would find it completely intuitive if they grew up in it all their lives.
I’m not saying that “every idea is equal.” That’s patently nonsense. What I’m saying is that, if you’re going to have a 24-hour clock indexed to noon, putting noon at 1200 makes just as much sense as putting it at any other time on that 24-hour clock.
Now go ahead and read what it’s doing in China and see our glorious idea at work
Sounds like the answer is “fine.” People in Xinjiang wake up a couple of hours late, start work at 1100, have lunch at 1400, and often watch the sun set at midnight. They continue to live there and continue to have a pretty normal life. The only weirdness comes from talking to people in other time zones, which again would not be a problem if everyone in the world had started with this from their youth.
Again, I’m not trying to suggest that it’s better. I’m just saying that this arbitrary choice about how to handle time around the world is not any better or worse than any other arbitrary choice we could have made; it’s only because we know our current method so well that we think any other method is weird.
Noon or midnight aren’t arbitrary. They’re the exact opposite. Noon is the middle of the day. The exact middle point of one revolution of our planet (roughly, days aren’t actually exactly a day long but that’s too advanced for you lol).
The exact middle of the day, recognisable to most people simply by looking up, is the exact opposite of arbitrary.
Numbers have no inherent meaning
Uh, yes they do. That’s why they’re called numbers. “2” means || that many things and “5” means ||||| means that many things. There’s literally an inherent meaning in them.
There’s also actual reason as to why the day is divided the way it is, but seeing how proud you are of your overbearing ignorance, I’m not gonna educate you on what it is.
Hours weren’t always the same length, it’d depend on the length of the time of day. Do you know what doesn’t change? Noon being in the middle of the day. Because we’re on a revolving piece of rock in space and no matter how much you stomp your foot and cry foul, noon will still always be non-arbitrary
What you need is a fkin dictionary bruh
Sounds like the answer is “fine.”
Ah, some deeply meaningful willfull ignorance, because you can’t admit you backed a moronic idea.
I didn’t say they were. I said that the numbers we’ve attached to them are.
(roughly, days aren’t actually exactly a day long but that’s too advanced for you lol).
Strong words from someone who only reads three out of every five words.
The exact middle of the day, recognisable to most people simply by looking up, is the exact opposite of arbitrary.
Calling it the “middle of the day” is. It could very easily be the beginning of the day, or three-quarters of the way through the day. If you had lived with that your whole life, you would think it was normal.
There’s literally an inherent meaning in [numbers].
Not as they’re used in timekeeping. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I needed to explain something so simple to you as “the words I use are meant to be interpreted in the context in which I’m using them.”
There’s also actual reason as to why the day is divided the way it is, but seeing how proud you are of your overbearing ignorance, I’m not gonna educate you on what it is.
That’s a lot of words to say “I don’t know but there’s probably a reason.”
The real reason is “because the ancient Egyptians arbitrarily decided to divide it into twelve hours.” As for indexing solar noon as 12:00, well, it actually didn’t always; in fact, the word “noon” comes from the Latin word for “nine.” The first hour of the day (when people woke up) was 1:00, roughly analogous to our 6am, and nine hours later (our 3pm) was “noon.” The reason it became solar noon was that they observed a sort of coordinated universal time! Noon drifted earlier in the day as the center of culture drifted.
Hours weren’t always the same length, it’d depend on the length of the time of day. Do you know what doesn’t change? Noon being in the middle of the day.
Sure it does. Other cultures make noon the beginning of the day, or make sunset the beginning of the day. Yes it changes the lengths of time periods. You only think it’s weird because you’ve always known a world where noon was the middle of the day.
Because we’re on a revolving piece of rock in space and no matter how much you stomp your foot and cry foul, noon will still always be non-arbitrary
True. But noon as equal to 1200 will always be arbitrary, because we’re on a rock in space and it didn’t come with any numbers on it.
Ah, some deeply meaningful willfull ignorance, because you can’t admit you backed a moronic idea.
Once again, I beg you to actually use some reading comprehension. I haven’t backed any ideas. But it’s easier to sling insults than to read carefully and come up with a cogent response.
You keep with your naive argument about noon being arbitrary and pretend as if your proposal isn’t like climbing up a tree arse first.
You’re just wrong.
With your system, if you woke up after drinking for days, not knowing literally where on Earth you are, you would see a restaurant, read the sign and still have zero idea when it was open. You’d need to know where you are and “when” the times are. Ridiculous
With the regular system, you wake up anywhere in the world, look up at the sky, see it’s roughly noon, and see a sign on a restaurant saying its open 10-21, you know you can walk in and eat.
You’re trying to make yourself out as logical, but you’re failing very fucking hard.
It’s called the middle of the day, because it’s in the middle of the day. Before it there’s an equal amount of light as after it. Youre honestly going to stand here arguing that high-noon being in the middle of a DAY is arbitrary, without smelling a hint of irony?
Take a thing. Divide it exactly in half. Can you cut at an arbitrary point to make that happen…? Or is there like a thing where if you choose the exact point in the middle of that thing (like, an exact point, not an arbitrary one), then you get two halves which are exactly the same size?
You’re clearly upset and projecting. Is English your first language? It’s honestly amazing how often I end up correcting Americans on how to use English.
Sure it does. Other cultures make noon the beginning of the day, or make sunset the beginning of the day
You didn’t understand the point. I was talking about Romans. Happy desperate googling, mr angry-like-a-wet-cat!
You saying a thing doesn’t make it so. For instance I could say that literally every word you said was arbitrary. It doesn’t make it so, does it? Also, trying to use prescriptivism shows just how lacking you are in your linguistics conversational.
Me purposefully not replying to each of your childish retorts wouldn’t help anything. You’re just wrong but you’ll never be able to accept it. You’ll equivocate, possibly for weeks even.
You keep with your naive argument about noon being arbitrary and pretend as if your proposal isn’t like climbing up a tree arse first.
I don’t have any proposal at all, and until you get that into your head, I just don’t see how you can possibly have enough of a basis to even continue this conversation intelligently.
You’re just wrong.
Citation needed.
With your system,
I. Don’t. Have. A. System.
if you woke up after drinking for days, not knowing literally where on Earth you are, you would see a restaurant, read the sign and still have zero idea when it was open. You’d need to know where you are and “when” the times are. Ridiculous
Bro, other languages exist. If you woke up after drinking for days, it’s entirely likely that you won’t be able to read the words on the sign and know whether it’s a restaurant or a nursing home or a gambling parlor.
It’s called the middle of the day, because it’s in the middle of the day.
That there’s what we call a tautology.
Before it there’s an equal amount of light as after it. Youre honestly going to stand here arguing that high-noon being in the middle of a DAY is arbitrary, without smelling a hint of irony?
Nope. But you still aren’t actually dealing with the reality that I’m not saying the word “noon” is arbitrary, I’m saying that the numbers we’ve assigned to it are. Remember, in the twelve hour clock, noon happens at the end of one set of numbers and at the beginning of the other set. In some timekeeping systems it’s even weirder. Other choices could and have been made, and are even still in use.
I’m begging you. Give some indication that you are at all literate here.
You’re clearly upset and projecting. Is English your first language? It’s honestly amazing how often I end up correcting Americans on how to use English.
Not sure what you’re talking about. I’m having a great time watching you make a fool of yourself and froth at the mouth about how intelligent you are. It’s hilarious.
You didn’t understand the point. I was talking about Romans. Happy desperate googling, mr angry-like-a-wet-cat!
Aw, sorry, I already noted that you’re angry. You can’t “no u” that one back at me. I’m deducting five indignation points.
You saying a thing doesn’t make it so. For instance I could say that literally every word you said was arbitrary. It doesn’t make it so, does it? Also, trying to use prescriptivism shows just how lacking you are in your linguistics conversational.
…eh? I’m very clearly not being prescriptivist, since I’m the one taking about how the word has been used differently through time.
Are you feeding my posts to ChatGPT and asking for responses?
Me purposefully not replying to each of your childish retorts wouldn’t help anything.
Ah, classic. “I don’t have an actual argument, so I’ll pretend like making one is beneath me and hope the other person makes it for me…”
You’re just wrong but you’ll never be able to accept it. You’ll equivocate, possibly for weeks even.
“…and then I’ll preemptively lay the table for me to exit the conversation with righteous indignation when I’ve used up all of my insults or gotten bored.” Love it. Well done.
You don’t understand what the word “arbitrary” means, lol.
I haven’t laughed this hard in weeks.
I. Don’t. Have. A. System.
With your imagined system of “if everyone had always lived with random ass times they would feel as normal as they do now”.
No, they wouldn’t, because unlike your ignorant-ass thinks, they aren’t arbitrary. You don’t understand the basic history of timekeeping and you have an utterly childish point, which is also wrong. Yes I know you’re not directly proposing the use of another system, implications exist. You’re just backing up on everything you’ve said after I rub your face in how stupid it’s been, then you pretend you don’t have a face full of poo.
It’s ridiculous.
I speak 2 languages on a native level, one or two more fluently and a half a dozen in a “I could order in a restaurant” level. I’m pretty sure I know more expressions about time in more languages than you. How many languages do you speak?
it’s entirely likely that you won’t be able to read the words on the sign
This is why I keep replying. You’re hilariously ironic. Remember you insisting how “numbers are inherently meaningless”? Scripts and languages change, sure, but most of the world uses Arabic numerals. :D It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the local language or “what time local noon is” or even if they’re using the same alphabet, you’ll still recognise a number like 14:00 - 03:00 and then look up at the sky and it’s not yet noon and you’ll know you’ll have to wait several hours at least.
With as with an actually arbitrary system you might see numbers like 0748-5531 and have no fucking idea if it’s even a time or even if it is a time, what time it’s referring to, even if you know it’s exactly midday.
But you’ll not admit that laughable. Which in itself amuses me.
That there’s what we call a tautology.
No shit, that’s why I’m laughing at you. You’re pretending like “noon” means nine because of its etymology, as in you’re pretending as if you understand linguistics, when you don’t understand that ignoring it’s actual descriptive meaning of “mid-day” (which is why it’s "high noon, because that’s describing the position of the sun) is something even a first year linguist would never do. Hell, even if you had just read the basic wiki entry you’d know how ridiculous that is. But you’re not about learning, you’re about pretending you know things.
I’m saying that the numbers we’ve assigned to it are
And I’m saying you are wrong in that. Because you are. You are wrong in saying that. Do you understand? You are incorrect. It is not arbitrary. Even the number 12 isn’t arbitrary, neither is 24 or 100. That’s not what the word means, sweetums. <3
Not sure what you’re talking about
Yes, I’m perfectly aware. Watching you prance around pretending to be smart is like watching toddlers bake mud cakes. It’s cute how they think they’re doing a credible job and you just have to act along so they can enjoy themselves. :)
…eh? I’m very clearly not being prescriptivis
Honestly you’re literally making my sides hurt
Oh I’m not going anywhere, hunny. You’re better entertainment than this show I’m watching.
You don’t understand what the word “arbitrary” means, lol.
Well, if you said it, it must be true.
With your imagined system of “if everyone had always lived with random ass times they would feel as normal as they do now”.
So wait, is this a pivot, or are you still trying to claim that I’m advocating for this? I have completely lost track of what you’re framing your abusive posts on now.
Anyway, your imagined system of “somehow the fact that the time when people wake up is called 0600 is inherent to our biology or orbital dynamics or whatever” is absolutely not more logical than the system that the OP has asked about. It’s just as arbitrary (hey, yeah, look, I still know what that means!).
You don’t understand the basic history of timekeeping
Once again proving that you haven’t read the previous posts I’ve made. Come on, dude. Simple reading. That’s all I’m asking for.
and you have an utterly childish point, which is also wrong.
You have yet to actually prove this. Made lots of assertions, but you’re just screaming “nuh-uh! YOU are!” over and over at this point and then spiking the conversational football as if it does anything.
You’re just backing up on everything you’ve said after I rub your face in how stupid it’s been, then you pretend you don’t have a face full of poo.
Finally discovering what I was actually saying because you actually decided to go back and read it this time doesn’t count as “backing up.” I’ve been saying the same thing this whole time.
I speak 2 languages on a native level, one or two more fluently and a half a dozen in a “I could order in a restaurant” level. I’m pretty sure I know more expressions about time in more languages than you. How many languages do you speak?
…congratulations? I’m not sure how that’s relevant in any way to anything. If it’s really important to you: you’re very smart and special. I bet you make your parents proud.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the local language or “what time local noon is” or even if they’re using the same alphabet, you’ll still recognise a number like 14:00 - 03:00 and then look up at the sky and it’s not yet noon and you’ll know you’ll have to wait several hours at least.
Maybe. Or you’ll walk up to the door of a veterinarian and wait around for five hours before you realize that people are bringing animals into the place, not walking out with food. There’s also the problem of not knowing whether it’s before noon or after noon (so a sign that says they’re open for lunch from 1000-1800 would be useless if the sun is in a position where it could easily be 0700 or 1900). Or not being able to see the sun due to clouds or night or being inside. What I’m saying is that there are bigger problems involved in the situation you brought up, which is why I doubt anyone would care to solve the time problem. In this fictional, made-up world where the history of timekeeping went a little bit differently. Which you’ve somehow decided merits insulting me, despite you not actually having an argument that makes any logical sense. (Or at least not one you’re willing to share with the class)
But you’ll not admit that laughable. Which in itself amuses me.
I admit it’s absolutely laughable! You know what else is absolutely laughable? The idea that the current system makes any more sense! If you’re trying to coordinate an event with someone just a few miles away but across a time zone boundary in our current system, you have to go to great pains to sort everything out and make sure nobody arrives an hour early or an hour late. Or, even worse, two hours early (which happened once to a friend of mine when he did the time zone math backwards). Despite being just miles apart, and not being able to see any appreciable visible difference between the sun. That’s laughable, too.
“Oh, but we have tools to deal with it” or “oh, but we can figure it out” or “oh, git gud, noob”–and yeah, we’re used to it because we grew up with it and our parents grew up with it and our teachers grew up with it for generations and generations. If it had gone the other way, we would’ve developed different tools to deal with it, different ways of figuring it out, and we would’ve gotten good at other ways of keeping time. That’s literally my entire point.
All of this is laughable. It’s all arbitrary (yep, still got it) and hilarious because we made it all up. All models are wrong (including timekeeping). Some are useful.
You’re pretending like “noon” means nine because of its etymology, as in you’re pretending as if you understand linguistics, when you don’t understand that ignoring it’s actual descriptive meaning of “mid-day” (which is why it’s "high noon, because that’s describing the position of the sun) is something even a first year linguist would never do.
Your refusal to read in favor of just assuming what I mean is showing again.
But you’re not about learning, you’re about pretending you know things.
Aw, buddy. You think you’re teaching me anything? If you had anything to teach me, that would be a welcome change. I love learning things. But you seem to be in “dunk mode” and absolutely furious that I keep refusing to let you dunk on me.
And I’m saying you are wrong in that. Because you are. You are wrong in saying that. Do you understand? You are incorrect. It is not arbitrary. Even the number 12 isn’t arbitrary, neither is 24 or 100. That’s not what the word means, sweetums. <3
You seriously think that assigning 12 to “noon” is inherent, babycakes? You literally believe that there’s no other way that we could’ve matched up numbers to the time of day, pumpkin? Like there’s not other ways of keeping time that used different numbers or even words instead of the digits you’re familiar with on the clocks you own, honeybunch?
We agreed on 1200 as noon. That’s why it works, and that’s the only reason it works. If we had decided that noon would be 0000 or 1800 or “the sixth hour” or whatever, you’d be screaming your pretty little head off that I’m ridiculous for suggesting that 1200 makes as much sense as anything else. The decision has historical precedent, but it’s scientifically arbitrary (boom, still know that word). The planet doesn’t care whether we call it 1200 or d3:12:1h::23 or Xylophone, it’ll still rotate to put us under the sun at that time.
Yes, I’m perfectly aware. Watching you prance around pretending to be smart is like watching toddlers bake mud cakes. It’s cute how they think they’re doing a credible job and you just have to act along so they can enjoy themselves. :)
Having been a parent of a toddler, I can tell you it’s definitely nothing like that. For one thing, toddlers baking mud cakes is adorable, and I definitely am not adorable.
Oh I’m not going anywhere, hunny. You’re better entertainment than this show I’m watching.
I’m so happy to be of service, sweetie-pie. You have a great day now, 'k?
It’s true, because it’s true. You saying something is “arbitrary” because you don’t understand the reason is very stupid indeed. Really American, I might say.
You talk about non-sequiturs (again like a teenager horny to pretend to be a philosopher who actually doesn’t know jack shit), while arguing about age. It’s hilarious.
You still don’t know what “arbitrary” means. 12, 24, 30, even 100 hour systems are in no way arbitrary.
You don’t understand what “implication” means either.
Damn, I could be having this conversation in several other languages, but I presume this is your “best” and all you manage is to whinge about how your mudcakes are actual food and stomp your food and cry on the ground until I pretend to eat one to make you happy.
No you haven’t “read a book about timekeeping”, you’re just a kiddo American feeling mighty stupid that someone is mocking them.
Like I told you, I’ll eventually tell you the answers, even though they’re pretty damn obvious for people who have actually read books about timekeeping. I mean roflmao why the fuck would you think of such a childish lie? This is why America is ridiculed. Your president being what it is has given you a false sense of how much regulate people can get away with asinine bullshitting.
You brought up language skills, and now try to make it seem like you didn’t think it important anyway. Seriously, I can’t think of a more childish way of going about that.
Remember how you didn’t notice anything about the divisibility of hours? Why are there no systems based on a prime number of hours, huh?
Oh I’ve read your posts. I’m just gonna keep you publicly shaming yourself so the bots have time to archive your stupidity for the rest of the world before you delete in all in an attack of shame when I finally do educate you
Or not being able to see the sun due to clouds or night or being inside
Surely you’re not this fucking stupid. You just can’t be.
“Hey is it day or night out?”
“Uh, I can’t tell, it’s so cloudy”
“Oh no, I’m inside, I have no way of knowing where the sun is, because all our buildings are shipping crates with no windows”
“Oh no, it’s night, and all the markers in the sky are clearly visible, what to do now?”
You “read a book about timekeeping” recently…?
I am not and have not argued you at any point. You are my entertainment. Just like I wouldn’t fight a kid, I won’t argue you.
You’re still grossly misusing “arbitrary”. I understand you’re linguistically challenged so here:
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
adjective 1.
based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
A tautology isn’t a reason, it’s a logical fallacy. Maybe even a religion. This would be a really weird religion to have a holy war over.
saying something is “arbitrary” because you don’t understand the reason
As opposed to just insisting that something isn’t because you don’t know the reason, like you seem to be doing? Prove me wrong. Provide any evidence. Or honestly even just a claim, a claim would at least be something worth discussing.
Really American, I might say.
Well, you’re not wrong there.
You still don’t know what “arbitrary” means. 12, 24, 30, even 100 hour systems are in no way arbitrary.
So they came from the universe factory with those meanings already imbued in them?
You don’t understand what “implication” means either.
Come on, man. Make a claim. Even make a bogus claim. But don’t just attack me for the fact that you don’t understand my language.
all you manage is to whinge about how your mudcakes are actual food and stomp your food and cry on the ground until I pretend to eat one to make you happy.
Do I? You’re the one that’s been slinging insults since the moment you showed up, and “pretending to eat one” would mean telling me what you think is right instead of trying to verbally abuse me until I admit that you were right, even though you haven’t actually said anything that could be right or wrong yet.
No you haven’t “read a book about timekeeping”,
Honestly now I’m wondering if it was a video series. I don’t see it in my reading log anywhere. But it was a long time ago, so maybe it was before I started logging books.
you’re just a kiddo American feeling mighty stupid that someone is mocking them.
You’re not “mocking” me. You’re shouting random nonsense from the opposing sidewalk and hoping that some of it makes sense.
Like I told you, I’ll eventually tell you the answers,
Press X to doubt.
even though they’re pretty damn obvious for people who have actually read books about timekeeping.
Then it should be pretty easy to point me toward one of these books, shouldn’t it?
This is why America is ridiculed.
There are a lot of reasons why America is ridiculed, and most of them are justified.
You brought up language skills, and now try to make it seem like you didn’t think it important anyway.
Pretty sure I never said anything about the number of languages one speaks being important.
Oh I’ve read your posts.
Citation needed.
I’m just gonna keep you publicly shaming yourself so the bots have time to archive your stupidity for the rest of the world before you delete in all in an attack of shame when I finally do educate you
Wow, you really don’t know me.
“Hey is it day or night out?”
“Uh, I can’t tell, it’s so cloudy”
“Hey, when does this restaurant open?”
“The sign says 11:00, but I don’t know what time it is. Or what day it is; it opens at 16:00 on Saturdays and not at all on Tuesdays.”
“Well, I see by the sun that it’s either a couple of hours before or after noon, or we’re at an extreme edge of the time zone and it’s exactly noon. So I guess rather than trying to find someone to ask or a restaurant that’s clearly open, we should just wait in front of this door for an indeterminate amount of time.”
You “read a book about timekeeping” recently…?
If I said “recently,” I misspoke. It was a long time ago.
I am not and have not argued you at any point.
This is literally what you’re doing now. The first definition of “argument” is “an exchange of diverging or opposite views, typically a heated or angry one.” I have a diverging view from you, apparently (even though you won’t actually tell me what it is), and you’re super heated about it for some reason.
You’re still grossly misusing “arbitrary”.
Based on the definition that you provided, I’m using it perfectly:
based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
The choice to divide the day into twelve hours was based on the personal whim of the ancient Egyptians. They found a particular set of twelve constellations to be important, but by random choice they might well have found a different set of, say, eight constellations to be important. Or sixteen. Or ten.
The choice to begin the day (and thus the numbering of the day) twelve hours before noon was based on the personal whim of the Romans. Maybe they liked some aspects of the choice better than starting the day six hours before noon like Jewish rabbis did, or at noon itself. They may have justified it with a good reason, but the people who chose otherwise would have justified their choice with a good reason as well; so for humanity as a whole, it is arbitrary.
The choice to mark out time zones within which all hours are indexed to the local noon was also made on the personal whim of…some railroad guy (I can’t remember his name) in the 19th century. He knew that the then-current system of every railway having their own time and every city along the railroad having a different local time was a bad idea (it was), but he could just as easily have chosen a UTC and suggested that the trains run on a truly universal UTC. Would it have caught on? Who knows? But we’re presuming for the sake of this discussion a world in which it did.
How is “our local noon is at 1200” any more objectively logical? Midnight is an objectively arbitrary time to start the new date. The best you can say is that it’s twelve hours before local noon, but even if you index off of local noon it doesn’t make any more logical sense to put the 0 while most people are asleep. Someone who hasn’t grown up with our clock might well say, “why would we choose a clock that puts the beginning of the usable part of the day at 6 or 7 for most people?” Calling the hour when people wake up 0000 or 0100 would make a lot of logical sense.
Numbers have no inherent meaning. We could make noon happen at 0000, 1200, 2200, whatever–and people would find it completely intuitive if they grew up in it all their lives.
I’m not saying that “every idea is equal.” That’s patently nonsense. What I’m saying is that, if you’re going to have a 24-hour clock indexed to noon, putting noon at 1200 makes just as much sense as putting it at any other time on that 24-hour clock.
Sounds like the answer is “fine.” People in Xinjiang wake up a couple of hours late, start work at 1100, have lunch at 1400, and often watch the sun set at midnight. They continue to live there and continue to have a pretty normal life. The only weirdness comes from talking to people in other time zones, which again would not be a problem if everyone in the world had started with this from their youth.
Again, I’m not trying to suggest that it’s better. I’m just saying that this arbitrary choice about how to handle time around the world is not any better or worse than any other arbitrary choice we could have made; it’s only because we know our current method so well that we think any other method is weird.
You don’t know what “arbitrary” means…
Noon or midnight aren’t arbitrary. They’re the exact opposite. Noon is the middle of the day. The exact middle point of one revolution of our planet (roughly, days aren’t actually exactly a day long but that’s too advanced for you lol).
The exact middle of the day, recognisable to most people simply by looking up, is the exact opposite of arbitrary.
Uh, yes they do. That’s why they’re called numbers. “2” means || that many things and “5” means ||||| means that many things. There’s literally an inherent meaning in them.
There’s also actual reason as to why the day is divided the way it is, but seeing how proud you are of your overbearing ignorance, I’m not gonna educate you on what it is.
Hours weren’t always the same length, it’d depend on the length of the time of day. Do you know what doesn’t change? Noon being in the middle of the day. Because we’re on a revolving piece of rock in space and no matter how much you stomp your foot and cry foul, noon will still always be non-arbitrary
What you need is a fkin dictionary bruh
Ah, some deeply meaningful willfull ignorance, because you can’t admit you backed a moronic idea.
I didn’t say they were. I said that the numbers we’ve attached to them are.
Strong words from someone who only reads three out of every five words.
Calling it the “middle of the day” is. It could very easily be the beginning of the day, or three-quarters of the way through the day. If you had lived with that your whole life, you would think it was normal.
Not as they’re used in timekeeping. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I needed to explain something so simple to you as “the words I use are meant to be interpreted in the context in which I’m using them.”
That’s a lot of words to say “I don’t know but there’s probably a reason.”
The real reason is “because the ancient Egyptians arbitrarily decided to divide it into twelve hours.” As for indexing solar noon as 12:00, well, it actually didn’t always; in fact, the word “noon” comes from the Latin word for “nine.” The first hour of the day (when people woke up) was 1:00, roughly analogous to our 6am, and nine hours later (our 3pm) was “noon.” The reason it became solar noon was that they observed a sort of coordinated universal time! Noon drifted earlier in the day as the center of culture drifted.
Sure it does. Other cultures make noon the beginning of the day, or make sunset the beginning of the day. Yes it changes the lengths of time periods. You only think it’s weird because you’ve always known a world where noon was the middle of the day.
True. But noon as equal to 1200 will always be arbitrary, because we’re on a rock in space and it didn’t come with any numbers on it.
Once again, I beg you to actually use some reading comprehension. I haven’t backed any ideas. But it’s easier to sling insults than to read carefully and come up with a cogent response.
You keep with your naive argument about noon being arbitrary and pretend as if your proposal isn’t like climbing up a tree arse first.
You’re just wrong.
With your system, if you woke up after drinking for days, not knowing literally where on Earth you are, you would see a restaurant, read the sign and still have zero idea when it was open. You’d need to know where you are and “when” the times are. Ridiculous
With the regular system, you wake up anywhere in the world, look up at the sky, see it’s roughly noon, and see a sign on a restaurant saying its open 10-21, you know you can walk in and eat.
You’re trying to make yourself out as logical, but you’re failing very fucking hard.
It’s called the middle of the day, because it’s in the middle of the day. Before it there’s an equal amount of light as after it. Youre honestly going to stand here arguing that high-noon being in the middle of a DAY is arbitrary, without smelling a hint of irony?
Take a thing. Divide it exactly in half. Can you cut at an arbitrary point to make that happen…? Or is there like a thing where if you choose the exact point in the middle of that thing (like, an exact point, not an arbitrary one), then you get two halves which are exactly the same size?
You’re clearly upset and projecting. Is English your first language? It’s honestly amazing how often I end up correcting Americans on how to use English.
You didn’t understand the point. I was talking about Romans. Happy desperate googling, mr angry-like-a-wet-cat!
You saying a thing doesn’t make it so. For instance I could say that literally every word you said was arbitrary. It doesn’t make it so, does it? Also, trying to use prescriptivism shows just how lacking you are in your linguistics conversational.
Me purposefully not replying to each of your childish retorts wouldn’t help anything. You’re just wrong but you’ll never be able to accept it. You’ll equivocate, possibly for weeks even.
I don’t have any proposal at all, and until you get that into your head, I just don’t see how you can possibly have enough of a basis to even continue this conversation intelligently.
Citation needed.
I. Don’t. Have. A. System.
Bro, other languages exist. If you woke up after drinking for days, it’s entirely likely that you won’t be able to read the words on the sign and know whether it’s a restaurant or a nursing home or a gambling parlor.
That there’s what we call a tautology.
Nope. But you still aren’t actually dealing with the reality that I’m not saying the word “noon” is arbitrary, I’m saying that the numbers we’ve assigned to it are. Remember, in the twelve hour clock, noon happens at the end of one set of numbers and at the beginning of the other set. In some timekeeping systems it’s even weirder. Other choices could and have been made, and are even still in use.
I’m begging you. Give some indication that you are at all literate here.
Not sure what you’re talking about. I’m having a great time watching you make a fool of yourself and froth at the mouth about how intelligent you are. It’s hilarious.
Aw, sorry, I already noted that you’re angry. You can’t “no u” that one back at me. I’m deducting five indignation points.
…eh? I’m very clearly not being prescriptivist, since I’m the one taking about how the word has been used differently through time.
Are you feeding my posts to ChatGPT and asking for responses?
Ah, classic. “I don’t have an actual argument, so I’ll pretend like making one is beneath me and hope the other person makes it for me…”
“…and then I’ll preemptively lay the table for me to exit the conversation with righteous indignation when I’ve used up all of my insults or gotten bored.” Love it. Well done.
You don’t understand what the word “arbitrary” means, lol.
I haven’t laughed this hard in weeks.
With your imagined system of “if everyone had always lived with random ass times they would feel as normal as they do now”.
No, they wouldn’t, because unlike your ignorant-ass thinks, they aren’t arbitrary. You don’t understand the basic history of timekeeping and you have an utterly childish point, which is also wrong. Yes I know you’re not directly proposing the use of another system, implications exist. You’re just backing up on everything you’ve said after I rub your face in how stupid it’s been, then you pretend you don’t have a face full of poo.
It’s ridiculous.
I speak 2 languages on a native level, one or two more fluently and a half a dozen in a “I could order in a restaurant” level. I’m pretty sure I know more expressions about time in more languages than you. How many languages do you speak?
This is why I keep replying. You’re hilariously ironic. Remember you insisting how “numbers are inherently meaningless”? Scripts and languages change, sure, but most of the world uses Arabic numerals. :D It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the local language or “what time local noon is” or even if they’re using the same alphabet, you’ll still recognise a number like 14:00 - 03:00 and then look up at the sky and it’s not yet noon and you’ll know you’ll have to wait several hours at least.
With as with an actually arbitrary system you might see numbers like 0748-5531 and have no fucking idea if it’s even a time or even if it is a time, what time it’s referring to, even if you know it’s exactly midday.
But you’ll not admit that laughable. Which in itself amuses me.
No shit, that’s why I’m laughing at you. You’re pretending like “noon” means nine because of its etymology, as in you’re pretending as if you understand linguistics, when you don’t understand that ignoring it’s actual descriptive meaning of “mid-day” (which is why it’s "high noon, because that’s describing the position of the sun) is something even a first year linguist would never do. Hell, even if you had just read the basic wiki entry you’d know how ridiculous that is. But you’re not about learning, you’re about pretending you know things.
And I’m saying you are wrong in that. Because you are. You are wrong in saying that. Do you understand? You are incorrect. It is not arbitrary. Even the number 12 isn’t arbitrary, neither is 24 or 100. That’s not what the word means, sweetums. <3
Yes, I’m perfectly aware. Watching you prance around pretending to be smart is like watching toddlers bake mud cakes. It’s cute how they think they’re doing a credible job and you just have to act along so they can enjoy themselves. :)
Honestly you’re literally making my sides hurt
Oh I’m not going anywhere, hunny. You’re better entertainment than this show I’m watching.
Well, if you said it, it must be true.
So wait, is this a pivot, or are you still trying to claim that I’m advocating for this? I have completely lost track of what you’re framing your abusive posts on now.
Anyway, your imagined system of “somehow the fact that the time when people wake up is called 0600 is inherent to our biology or orbital dynamics or whatever” is absolutely not more logical than the system that the OP has asked about. It’s just as arbitrary (hey, yeah, look, I still know what that means!).
Once again proving that you haven’t read the previous posts I’ve made. Come on, dude. Simple reading. That’s all I’m asking for.
You have yet to actually prove this. Made lots of assertions, but you’re just screaming “nuh-uh! YOU are!” over and over at this point and then spiking the conversational football as if it does anything.
Finally discovering what I was actually saying because you actually decided to go back and read it this time doesn’t count as “backing up.” I’ve been saying the same thing this whole time.
…congratulations? I’m not sure how that’s relevant in any way to anything. If it’s really important to you: you’re very smart and special. I bet you make your parents proud.
Maybe. Or you’ll walk up to the door of a veterinarian and wait around for five hours before you realize that people are bringing animals into the place, not walking out with food. There’s also the problem of not knowing whether it’s before noon or after noon (so a sign that says they’re open for lunch from 1000-1800 would be useless if the sun is in a position where it could easily be 0700 or 1900). Or not being able to see the sun due to clouds or night or being inside. What I’m saying is that there are bigger problems involved in the situation you brought up, which is why I doubt anyone would care to solve the time problem. In this fictional, made-up world where the history of timekeeping went a little bit differently. Which you’ve somehow decided merits insulting me, despite you not actually having an argument that makes any logical sense. (Or at least not one you’re willing to share with the class)
I admit it’s absolutely laughable! You know what else is absolutely laughable? The idea that the current system makes any more sense! If you’re trying to coordinate an event with someone just a few miles away but across a time zone boundary in our current system, you have to go to great pains to sort everything out and make sure nobody arrives an hour early or an hour late. Or, even worse, two hours early (which happened once to a friend of mine when he did the time zone math backwards). Despite being just miles apart, and not being able to see any appreciable visible difference between the sun. That’s laughable, too.
“Oh, but we have tools to deal with it” or “oh, but we can figure it out” or “oh, git gud, noob”–and yeah, we’re used to it because we grew up with it and our parents grew up with it and our teachers grew up with it for generations and generations. If it had gone the other way, we would’ve developed different tools to deal with it, different ways of figuring it out, and we would’ve gotten good at other ways of keeping time. That’s literally my entire point.
All of this is laughable. It’s all arbitrary (yep, still got it) and hilarious because we made it all up. All models are wrong (including timekeeping). Some are useful.
Your refusal to read in favor of just assuming what I mean is showing again.
Aw, buddy. You think you’re teaching me anything? If you had anything to teach me, that would be a welcome change. I love learning things. But you seem to be in “dunk mode” and absolutely furious that I keep refusing to let you dunk on me.
You seriously think that assigning 12 to “noon” is inherent, babycakes? You literally believe that there’s no other way that we could’ve matched up numbers to the time of day, pumpkin? Like there’s not other ways of keeping time that used different numbers or even words instead of the digits you’re familiar with on the clocks you own, honeybunch?
We agreed on 1200 as noon. That’s why it works, and that’s the only reason it works. If we had decided that noon would be 0000 or 1800 or “the sixth hour” or whatever, you’d be screaming your pretty little head off that I’m ridiculous for suggesting that 1200 makes as much sense as anything else. The decision has historical precedent, but it’s scientifically arbitrary (boom, still know that word). The planet doesn’t care whether we call it 1200 or d3:12:1h::23 or Xylophone, it’ll still rotate to put us under the sun at that time.
Having been a parent of a toddler, I can tell you it’s definitely nothing like that. For one thing, toddlers baking mud cakes is adorable, and I definitely am not adorable.
I’m so happy to be of service, sweetie-pie. You have a great day now, 'k?
It’s true, because it’s true. You saying something is “arbitrary” because you don’t understand the reason is very stupid indeed. Really American, I might say.
You talk about non-sequiturs (again like a teenager horny to pretend to be a philosopher who actually doesn’t know jack shit), while arguing about age. It’s hilarious.
You still don’t know what “arbitrary” means. 12, 24, 30, even 100 hour systems are in no way arbitrary.
You don’t understand what “implication” means either.
Damn, I could be having this conversation in several other languages, but I presume this is your “best” and all you manage is to whinge about how your mudcakes are actual food and stomp your food and cry on the ground until I pretend to eat one to make you happy.
No you haven’t “read a book about timekeeping”, you’re just a kiddo American feeling mighty stupid that someone is mocking them.
Like I told you, I’ll eventually tell you the answers, even though they’re pretty damn obvious for people who have actually read books about timekeeping. I mean roflmao why the fuck would you think of such a childish lie? This is why America is ridiculed. Your president being what it is has given you a false sense of how much regulate people can get away with asinine bullshitting.
You brought up language skills, and now try to make it seem like you didn’t think it important anyway. Seriously, I can’t think of a more childish way of going about that.
Remember how you didn’t notice anything about the divisibility of hours? Why are there no systems based on a prime number of hours, huh?
Oh I’ve read your posts. I’m just gonna keep you publicly shaming yourself so the bots have time to archive your stupidity for the rest of the world before you delete in all in an attack of shame when I finally do educate you
Surely you’re not this fucking stupid. You just can’t be.
“Hey is it day or night out?”
“Uh, I can’t tell, it’s so cloudy”
“Oh no, I’m inside, I have no way of knowing where the sun is, because all our buildings are shipping crates with no windows”
“Oh no, it’s night, and all the markers in the sky are clearly visible, what to do now?”
You “read a book about timekeeping” recently…?
I am not and have not argued you at any point. You are my entertainment. Just like I wouldn’t fight a kid, I won’t argue you.
You’re still grossly misusing “arbitrary”. I understand you’re linguistically challenged so here:
A tautology isn’t a reason, it’s a logical fallacy. Maybe even a religion. This would be a really weird religion to have a holy war over.
As opposed to just insisting that something isn’t because you don’t know the reason, like you seem to be doing? Prove me wrong. Provide any evidence. Or honestly even just a claim, a claim would at least be something worth discussing.
Well, you’re not wrong there.
So they came from the universe factory with those meanings already imbued in them?
Come on, man. Make a claim. Even make a bogus claim. But don’t just attack me for the fact that you don’t understand my language.
Do I? You’re the one that’s been slinging insults since the moment you showed up, and “pretending to eat one” would mean telling me what you think is right instead of trying to verbally abuse me until I admit that you were right, even though you haven’t actually said anything that could be right or wrong yet.
Honestly now I’m wondering if it was a video series. I don’t see it in my reading log anywhere. But it was a long time ago, so maybe it was before I started logging books.
You’re not “mocking” me. You’re shouting random nonsense from the opposing sidewalk and hoping that some of it makes sense.
Press X to doubt.
Then it should be pretty easy to point me toward one of these books, shouldn’t it?
There are a lot of reasons why America is ridiculed, and most of them are justified.
Pretty sure I never said anything about the number of languages one speaks being important.
Citation needed.
Wow, you really don’t know me.
“Hey, when does this restaurant open?”
“The sign says 11:00, but I don’t know what time it is. Or what day it is; it opens at 16:00 on Saturdays and not at all on Tuesdays.”
“Well, I see by the sun that it’s either a couple of hours before or after noon, or we’re at an extreme edge of the time zone and it’s exactly noon. So I guess rather than trying to find someone to ask or a restaurant that’s clearly open, we should just wait in front of this door for an indeterminate amount of time.”
If I said “recently,” I misspoke. It was a long time ago.
This is literally what you’re doing now. The first definition of “argument” is “an exchange of diverging or opposite views, typically a heated or angry one.” I have a diverging view from you, apparently (even though you won’t actually tell me what it is), and you’re super heated about it for some reason.
Based on the definition that you provided, I’m using it perfectly:
The choice to divide the day into twelve hours was based on the personal whim of the ancient Egyptians. They found a particular set of twelve constellations to be important, but by random choice they might well have found a different set of, say, eight constellations to be important. Or sixteen. Or ten.
The choice to begin the day (and thus the numbering of the day) twelve hours before noon was based on the personal whim of the Romans. Maybe they liked some aspects of the choice better than starting the day six hours before noon like Jewish rabbis did, or at noon itself. They may have justified it with a good reason, but the people who chose otherwise would have justified their choice with a good reason as well; so for humanity as a whole, it is arbitrary.
The choice to mark out time zones within which all hours are indexed to the local noon was also made on the personal whim of…some railroad guy (I can’t remember his name) in the 19th century. He knew that the then-current system of every railway having their own time and every city along the railroad having a different local time was a bad idea (it was), but he could just as easily have chosen a UTC and suggested that the trains run on a truly universal UTC. Would it have caught on? Who knows? But we’re presuming for the sake of this discussion a world in which it did.