Military Time vs 24hr?
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.
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Look up the "theory of American exceptionalism". In short there is a very strong belief here that America is one of a kind and things that may work for others simply don't apply here.
Explains why the US stocks a 12hr clock, messed up month/day/year mission, imperial measurement and a ton of other things that any foreigner will find anywhere from quirky to infuriating.
IMHO the exceptionalism theory is a b.s. lazy way of keeping things conservative and unchanged and shutting down any discussion of uncomfortable progress.
It's not even imperial measurements - the US has its own customary units.
US and international date standards all suck : ISO8601 on the other hand is beautiful
There was a theory I read at one point, that for the life of me I can't remember the name of, that basically described a generalized form of exceptionalism, but for different categories.
Basically, the "most something" countries in any particular category are going to have exceptional circumstances that make what other countries do not always apply.
India, having the largest population, faces demographic problems that solutions that work in the Netherlands just can't address.
Same with Russian transportation infrastructure, and ultimately American economic issues.
"American Exceptionalism" also known as "Europeans are obsessed with America and can't understand why American's don't follow their orders, meanwhile the Danes count like Barbarians and the UK hasn't picked a system"
I could give a shit about following orders, it's a lot easier dealing with international business/trade/politics.
If everyone is on the same page, things are easier. I like the metric system. I'm a mechanic and my life is often hell because of the differences.
Ah yes, the two halves of the world, America and Europe.
On the english-speaking internet? Pretty much, plus the Aussies and Canadians.
You can make a "I hate you so much" "I don't think about you at all" meme out of it if you want, but the fact is that American media, most notably Hollywood has an immense cultural impact in the western world. People are often confronted with the weird system that Americans use, but not the other way round, let alone come across something like the danish numbering system. It's less obsession and more unpleasant regular occurances that lead to such strong opinions about the American system.
Well then make your own movies and shows then. Im not really seeing the problem.
We are, and plenty of em.
They just aren't in English.
So if we look for English content, we encounter fantasy metrics where you guys measure in the feet of a long dead king, and the idiotic AM/PM system that goes from 11 AM to 12 PM and then to 1 PM.
Why are you so obsessed with what Americans use for measurements? They aren't forcing or even asking you to use it
Ok, then why blame us? "Oh no. Someone put up a sign for burgers and when I went inside, they had burgers! Im going to blame them!"
Also, plenty of countries use both 12 hour and 24 hour time. Its not hard.
Thank you for sharing that! I’ll have a look into it.