Is 24/7 a common idiom throughout the world?

BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 48 points –

Normally idioms are language specific, but number of hours and days are the same.

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I have actually never heard anyone say it this way specifically where I grew up... so technically the answer is "no"?

I tried to dug around and found a Reddit post saying this:

"The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines the term as "twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week; constantly". It lists its first reference to 24/7 to be from a 1983 story in the US magazine Sports Illustrated in which Louisiana State University player Jerry Reynolds describes his jump shot in just such a way: 24-7-365."

So this might be a fairly new idiom? Which would explain why it's not really a thing in a lot of cultures... but I assume they have their ways of referring to this.

number of hours and days are the same

Ok akktually Japan has a rather interesting 30-hour day thing in the context of businesses... but jokes aside, the 24-hour, 7-day week system is indeed quite universal

Where did you grow up?

East Asia; again, never heard anyone refer to "24/7" specifically (ok maybe at more hipster places that try to imitate American businesses?)... There might be a similar idiom for it but I genuinely couldn't think of any off the top of my head