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.

    • CorneliusTalmadge@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      8 months ago

      There are watches that have an actual 24hr face as you describe the normal 6 position is 12 and 12 becomes 24. Which I think are fairly uncommon, I don’t recall ever seeing one in person.

      More common to just see analog watches with dual time markings say a 24 under the 12.

      An image search along the lines of “24hr watch face” will show some examples.

      • njordomir@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        8 months ago

        As someone who really needs to visualize my day, I love phone and watch apps that use a 24h watch face. It’s very logical to display sunrise/sunset times and I even found an app that displays my calendar events as time slices in my clock pie.

        Always wanted to pick up a cool analog 24h watch too.

            • njordomir@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              8 months ago

              Yep, Sectograph, it has some annoyances, but generally very good. I never understood the flags and why it would use them instead of a pie piece for longer events. I wanted to get a big circular led display and make a sectograph wall clock, but the prices for circular led screens scared me off before I got started.

      • theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        8 months ago

        Yes they are pretty uncommon, all the ones I have owned were old Russian ones that could be pretty unreliable and watch makers never wanted to touch them in terms of repairing them, hence why I have had a few. I believe the ones I had were made by ‘Raketa’