Military Time vs 24hr?

governorkeagan@lemdro.id to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 231 points –

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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In Switzerland it works like that too.

"Normal time" for us is 24h with colon so 18:00

While "Military time" is without colon, so 1800 and is then pronounced as achtzehnhundert (eighteen hundred).

We don't use colons in our time in the American hospital system. We use them for a lot of other things though. (Pun)