This is HILARIOUS. This thread has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is FAR from the "dominant" way to express minutes before an hour and that it just rocks some people's world so much that they refuse to let go. Do I need to make a freakin' poll? I will. I like how Perknose said "you need to get along with the rest of us" when it's HIM who is refusing to recognize that the majority in this thread either never heard it, rarely hear it, or simply don't use it.
How about this: A test. I came from the other side of the country and I have already polled nearly all my contacts there asking if they have every heard it that way in their entire life. In addition to my personal 28 years of living there without hearing it a single time, all repeat what I and others in this thread have been saying: We have never heard "of" used in that way before. This is LIFETIMES of experience in the "Appalachia" region. Now, here in San Diego, the only other person working with me is the graveyard shift supervisor, Roberto Pernudi. He speaks with an accent and has worked at this site in San Diego for many years. I did not hand pick this guy. He is literally the only person I can ask in all of Southern California for the next 8 hours, so it doesn't get any more arbitrary than that. So, let's ask him the same question: "Have you ever heard anyone say, for example, 'five of nine' to mean 'eight fifty-five?'" His answer? NO. He said that he has never heard anyone tell time that way and would not know what they meant if he heard it prior to talking to me. He knows, "till" and "to," uses "to." He has lived here 7 years and lived in Las Vegas and Miami before that (likely Cuban ancestry). He seems like he is in his late 30s. Yes, I'm aware that one example plus my, my brother's, and other forumers' responses alone aren't going to be enough to convince some of you, so I'll do another completely random sampling when my relief gets here. Heck, I'll even get a recording device and go ask people in town after I get some sleep if that's what it takes.
SoCal is about as different as it gets from "Appalachia" (describes the deep South's isolated mountaineers AKA "rednecks" in the Appalachian mountain range).
Originally posted by: JujuFish
I like how you're ignoring the fact that it's in the dictionary. Way to go, champ.
I like how you IGNORE the fact that I had to sleep and get up to work a graveyard shift in under three hours and very explicitly stated that I hadn't gotten that far in the thread. I read and responded to every post that was posted when I loaded the thread and by the time I was done I not only recognized that there had been more made since but I also ACKNOWLEDGED that I hadn't read them yet. You are the only one failing to acknowledge something here. It should have been more than enough to head off just such a response and yet you ironically attempt to call me out for "ignoring" it when you were the one ignoring me.
Also, had I gotten that far, I would have immediately told you that it is a perfect example of a "retcon." Notice that the only example of using it to mean "before" is in reference to time? This isn't a Chicken and Egg scenario. If the ONLY demonstrable use of it to mean "before" is in relating times as "minutes until hour," then the usage came before the definition. Enough people using something differently and getting it in the dictionary happens all the time, whether a deliberate new use ([forum] "troll"/"google") or a long-standing misuse ("ain't").
Now, yes, "of" can relate distance and distance can be related to time, but the relation is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the usage as it applies to minutes before the hour.
This is why until, 'til, till, to, and before are more universally understood. If I am "half
of the way there" (typically "of the" is left out), it means that I am half
of the total distance and average travel time there. If I am five miles
of the way there it means that I have traveled five miles, not that I only have five miles remaining to reach my destination. If the total trip was 15 miles, I am likely one third
of the distance/average travel time there. If I described myself as a third
of the way there, I could be talking about distance OR time. If it's an 6-day journey, three by bus and three by horseback, I could say that I am half-way (half
of the way) there when I get off the bus no matter how many miles more were made on the bus because I am half-way through the total travel time. Referencing time or the distance is my choice and something I can chose to clarify with extra details or not (or different wording, like "half of the
distance there"). Because the usefulness of relating this information to someone else is to estimate arrival
time, one can usually assume that "a third
OF the way" relates to
TIME PASSED of the total trip
time... usually not distance unless both are averaged/estimated together and never, EVER, assumed to mean "time remaining." To specify the time or distance remaining at any other value than half-way, you would absolutely have to specify that you are referring to the remaining distance or time, such as "a third of the way LEFT TO GO."
Like I said before, referring to time as "a quarter of five" would have only helped me figure it out slightly faster... though it wouldn't help me guess before or after because it still conflicts with standard usage of the word "of" as it relates percentages to travel times and distance.
Originally posted by: Perknose
Originally posted by: CZroe
*Perknose - Finally states an opinion after getting a quote that builds his confidence in his position. It doesn't help though because it doesn't support his claim of it being the "dominant" way to express time. Rather, it lists it as a way and then doesn't reference regional use while referencing regional use of the others. What he doesn't understand is that the others have cross-regional understanding but a regional preference for use.
Bullshit, you arrogant little punk-ass.
How is it bullshit? Before that you made several posts in this thread without indicating your preference/use and I pointed that out. You then made a post solidifying your view for the first time (I pointed that out too) and here's the quote you used to support your claim that it is the dominant expressions:
"a quarter of, a quarter to or a quarter till in American usage; the form a quarter to is associated with parts of the Northern United States, while a quarter till is found chiefly in the Appalachian region." I made three points #1: It lists it as *A* way (of three). #2: It does NOT say which is dominant. #3: It gives regional information for "till" and "to" yet does not give the regions where "of" is used despite it clearly not being used by much of the country (or understood for that matter).
The reason why the others have cross-regional understanding BEYOND the regions they are dominantly used in is because they are simply shortened phrases in plain broadly-understood English, where expanding "Five of Nine" to "Five minutes of Nine o'clock" does not clarify the use of "of" in any way... "of" is simply not used that way in any other part of the English language. If there are five more minutes until the current time will be 9 o'clock, then it is "five minutes till nine" and I could just as easily have stated the whole thing without confusion (Five minutes until Nine o'clock). If, in five minutes, the hands will have reached the 9 o'clock position, then "9" is a destination and it is "5 minutes to 9." If it is not yet Nine o'clock and not yet past Nine o'clock, it stands to reason that it is BEFORE Nine o'clock, hence "5 minutes before 9." Anyone can understand that.
Continuing on...
Originally posted by: Perknose
YOU are the crying little baby who doesn't understand the DOMINANT American idiom for expressing minutes before the hour.
You annoy me. :|
You OBVIOUSLY grew up surrounded by other Asian-Americans.. I suspected as much. You and your brother have an imperfect understanding of American English. That English that your parents did know was British English, and your circle of friends FAILED you in this regard, as did your schools.
Well, you are inarguably very wrong about my exposure to Asian-Americans, just as you were wrong about it being dominant. Though I am meeting my sister's Filipino friends for the first time, none of my circle of friends or other acquaintences have been Asian, but I still have to ask: Why are you singling out Asian-Americans? I am neither Asian-American nor have I ever lived in an Asian community until JUST now (moved to Mira Mesa, San Diego less than three months ago) and, just to thwart whatever racially assumptive point you were trying to make, it wasn't until I moved here into an ASIAN community that I first heard it... though I will admit that it was not from an Asian-American (my Polish half-sister). Newnan, GA does not have an Asian community. One has to travel north of Atlanta into Gwinette/Duluth to find the big Asian communities there. I know of no European, African, Asian, or Australian, ancestry in me and I'm about as ambiguously American/Caucasian as one could get. The only non-US blood in me that I know of comes from my great grandfather on my mother's side who may have been 1/2 Mexican (and we all know that Mexico is part of America
). My mother has lived in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Washington DC (birthplace), Maryland, Alabama, Georgia, and Switzerland, and more places and yet she can't recall ever hearing it expressed that way either. Sticking to your guns here is only making YOU seem like the stick in the mud.
Originally posted by: Perknose
Now, there ARE genuine regional differences in the States, places where "to" is not widely used. So, such ignorance of the dominant American idiom is NOT restricted to those, like first generation Asian-Americans, who are influenced by their imperfect understanding of our language.
Show me one person who does not understand "5 to 9," even if they don't use it. If it will take 5 minutes for the hands
to reach 9 o'clock, it's understandably "5 minutes to 9" and therefore "5 to 9." You can't show me even one. Look, we even have Canadians in the thread saying that they've never heard it expressed your way (xcript). Last I checked, Canada was part of America too and they usually prefer American English over British. Now, I wonder: if you came from a French-speaking part of Canada, would you balk and claim that the dominant way to express anything in America is in French and that those who don't speak French are or live with Asian-Americans? HA!
You are right: There are genuine regional differences and you now need to recognize that this is not only one of them, but it is one you should make a conscious effort to stop using in favor of a more universally understood way to relate time. I can tell you with 100% honesty that if I came into this thread with the opposite situation (having used "of" in this way my entire life), based on the responses both you and I have seen here,
I would STOP USING IT... exactly how your "American born Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language at the University of Sussex in England" Lynne Murphy stopped using and and exactly as I stopped using "tea" to mean "sweet iced tea" more than a decade ago, *even in regions that still use "tea" to mean sweet iced tea.* Yes, ordering "half sweet iced" or "unsweet iced" tea at drive-throughs usually means I have to repeat myself a few times, but I've found that simply specifying "iced" causes the same issue (when ordering for other people; I never order fully sweetened iced tea). At any drive-through in the South-East, be it McDonalds or Taco Bell, it's assumed to be "sweet" and it's assumed to be "iced." Yes, every McDonald's, Arby's, and Taco Bell, etc in the SE USA has had sweet iced tea since at least the 70s, so no, "Mickey D's Southern Style Sweet Tea" is only "new" on a more national level. Similarly, fried chicken biscuits are not new either (existed as long as breakfast biscuit sandwiches have), and that too
prompted a "WTF?" thread from those who didn't know here on ATOT. We have also always had fried "Steak Biscuits" at Mrs Winner's Fried Chicken, Hardee's, McDonald's, etc. And it isn't all sweet & fried "Southern" stuff either: McDonald's bagel breakfast sandwiches have been a staple alternative to crappy muffin buns and greasy biscuits for ~15 years IIRC and I've known for 8 years that all you can get here in CA is a biscuit (ala Sausage Biscuit), a muffin (ala Egg McMuffin), or more recently a sweet griddle cake (ala McGriddle; the highest calorie option by far)... not that bagels aren't dense with carbs too, but at least they aren't greasy, buttered, and sugary. *sigh* Such small differences taken for granted are surprising, so I can see how such a big one is a shock to you.
So, unlike you, I've demonstrated objectivity and willingness to change if you could make the case: it would not be the first time I stopped using terminology that not everyone understood in favor of a more universal term and I always strive to change them. I expect no less from you. It is clearly why technical writers and the media do not use it and why it remains regional. Heck, I remember when I struggled to stop calling video game levels "boards" back in the 80s side-scroller days (everyone I knew for years had called them "boards"). I wasn't the only one, hence the eventual disuse of and then rarity of the word "board" in my area where it was once dominant. This is a challenge: Show me in national media some example of time being expressed that way while being expected to be understood by all as opposed to "til" and "to."
Oh, and once again, why the heck are you singling out Asian-Americans? You seem to think that they are some sort of benchmark for measuring imperfect understanding of the English language and this idiom, when they are completely unrelated to the distribution or use or understanding of it. We've found that it's used/not-used on a REGIONAL scale, where we've demonstrated that awareness is NON-EXISTANT in many regions, and isn't heard in popular national media, but no one has implied that it is understood or not on the smaller community demographic scale.
Originally posted by: Perknose
But please, get over your own ignorant self, k?
Take your own advice. Ask yourself: Are the ones who had no possible way of knowing ignorant, or are the fewer ones who assume that their way is "dominant" and believes everyone else to be "sheltered, ignorant, Leroys" expressing ignorance? I would say that it is YOU who is unaware of how non-pervasive its use and understanding truly is. You took it for granted all your life and are now protecting that ignorance by defending its indefensible continued use.
Originally posted by: Perknose
Specific rejoinders:
1.) In the article I cited, "of" is listed FIRST, Leroy (<---- idiomatic for stupid and not necessarily your given name) BECAUSE it's the DOMINANT idiom.
Why? Because you just can't possibly imagine why else it may have been written first? How about context. Who was it written by and for whom? Answer: It was written by someone every bit as clueless about the actual demographics and distribution as yourself OR written for understanding by people in your region.
Originally posted by: Perknose
2).) As the Dominant American idiom, it isn't restricted to regional use, you fucking twerp, that's why the others ARE listed as regional and it is not.
Assumptions, assumptions, and more assumptions. I think we've more than established which is more dominantly understood and used in this thread. It *IS* restricted to regional use and there are no two ways about it. I've crossed the entire damned country and can attest to it. Look at the responses in this thread and total it up yourself if you don't believe me. I did the work and I expect the same from anyone else before calling people sheltered ignorant idiots, stupid Leroys, and "fucking twerps." If it were the dominant idiom, you'd find it dominant in popular media. Instead, you don't find it AT ALL. Type "ten of noon" in Google and instead you'll find page after page referencing a movie called "Ten
'til Noon." I'm on page four and haven't found "ten of noon" once in the search results. It's proving easier to find proof of "til": as the dominant use even with search queries geared to find "of" in use. For example, find me a movie or some other national media titled "[minute] of [hour]." There isn't a movie titled after it, but you can try "five of noon" too and you'll find references to 5 'til/till noon and 5 after/past noon *instead.* I've seen all that and more in the first four pages and still haven't seen "five of noon." Face it: You're flat-out WRONG about it being more dominant. If your source says that despite your quote NOT saying that (which I doubt), it's wrong too. Plain and simple.
Here's another example in national/international media which I understood perfectly:
http://gizmodo.com/5142320/tri...er-till-i-pee-my-pants
Gizmodo refers to a artistic clock that looks like a Trilobite and makes a joke in the headline about how scary it looks.
"Trilobite Clock: It's Half Past Creepy and a Quarter Till I Pee My Pants"
That joke references time past the hour and time before the hour. Sure enough, it references it with "till" and not "of."He didn't say "...Quarter of Pee My Pants" because only SOME of his readers would have understood that as a twisted time reference. All or nearly all got the "time" joke without a single number because it was written PROPERLY. Now, tell me: why is it so easy to find public examples of "till," "before," and "to" and yet you only find "of" in understandably regional sources (blogs, vlogs, discussions of the idiom, reference sources, etc)? You can't use the dictionary as a way to prove that is is the most common use or that it is normally understood because by it's very purpose it is a reference source that would be EXPECTED to have all definitions in it, commonly understod or not, or else we'd never have to look anything up in a dictionary!
Originally posted by: Perknose
3.) I cited it so you would know and understand what's what, but your arrogance and ignorance are apparently bulletproof. :roll:
Ok, folks, who are you going to go with, Leroy and his equally ignorant brother OR Lynne Murphy, an American born Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language at the University of Sussex in England -- someone who has made it her FUCKING BUSINESS to know both strains of English:
How about getting it from the horse's mouth instead of from an outsider who has obviously encountered people like you or may have specifically come from an area like you and share your perspective? No one is arguing that your perspective doesn't exist. You are relying on her similarly limited perspective which, when used alone, proves nothing more than the EXISTENCE of your own perspective. What use is that when no one is saying that it isn't commonly used where you are? They are saying that you are wrong to believe that it is commonly used across the country and that you are wrong to believe it to be the dominant use based on your personal BLIND experience. She is simply another sharing your PERSPECTIVE. You are relying on her perspective and calling it research instead of doing research your own, the most basic of which is actually READING the responses from others in this thread. This thread is an unbiased sampling of Internet-connected America and the English-speaking world. I also find it HILARIOUS that you would use a quote that was specifically pointing out that she'd meant "before" yet said "of" and
was neither understood nor could she explain it. Way to prove my point as to why you should stop using it! Just who's side are you on anyway?
Originally posted by: Perknose
The time-telling construction exemplified by quarter of four was among the first Americanisms to be beaten out of me (metaphorically, of course) ex patria. People challenged me to explain why I'd said of when I'd meant 'before', and since I couldn't explain it, I gave up saying it. This is the most opaque of the differing time expressions in AmE and BrE, but there are others. In the table below, the ones that are in bold are particular to one dialect. If they're not in bold, they're used in the other dialect too:
time .......................AmE................................ BrE
10:15................ quarter after10...................quarter past 10
9:45................... quarter of 10....................quarter to 10
10.30.................. ten-thirty...........................half-ten
In either dialect, one could say half past 10, but Americans generally call it ten-thirty. The BrE half-ten is informal, but common in speech. What's very confusing, if you're someone who is learning both BrE and Swedish at the same time (ok, so maybe it won't bother you), is that in Swedish halv-tio ('half-ten') means 'half an hour until ten', i.e. 9:30.
Some Americans say quarter till ten, which Michael Swan on the BBC Worldservice reports is due to old Scottish English. Hence its effect in the US is strongest in Appalachia.
Notice that she said she "couldn't explain it" so she gave up saying it. This is EXACTLY what you should do. If you can't explain why you prefer the more troublesome usage, STOP USING IT and use one that will cause no trouble what-so-ever. Notice that "to" is understood both here and in British English? Why not use that? Does it have to get beaten out of you too? Consequently, I understand "before" even if I don't use it and I'm sure I've heard it said many times in my life, which is something I could not say about "of." Also, she said it was AmE, but that doesn't mean that it isn't regional AmE.
NEWS FLASH! American and British English differences are also regional and, therefore, are not immune to having their own regional differences within AmE and BrE! By saying that something "is" AmE, it doesn't make it universal within AmE, and in this case it simply EXCLUDES it from BmE. Your quote is USELESS for your purposes because we are uncovering regional differences *within* AmE and NOT COMPARING AmE to BrE.
Originally posted by: Perknose
As you can plainly see, "quarter of 10" IS the standard way in AmE for stating 9:45.
Are you forgetting that this is relating an anecdotal experience that 100% confirms my reasoning for why you should stop using it and does so BY EXAMPLE?!
Originally posted by: Perknose
So, who are you going to believe, Leroy or a linguistic professional who teaches at the University level and is fully versed in both BrE and AmE?
Decisions, descisions. :roll:
It appears that you have chosen to ignore this linguist. She made a point that it isn't universally understood (which applies here too), couldn't jusitfy it (she was challenged to explain and couldn't), and deliberately stopped using it from that point on for those very reasons (AS SHOULD YOU).
Originally posted by: Perknose
Now, what you need to understand is that this linguist now lives (and teaches linguistics) in England, so she has graciously adopted the English way.
Which we've demonstrated is one of the UNIVERSALLY UNDERSTOOD AND USED EVERYWHERE ENGLISH IS SPOKEN "ways." Also, you live in the USA which we have demonstrate does not understand it outside of the few regions that use it. YOU should "graciously adopt" the dominant AMERICAN way for the same USEFUL reasons, even if you forever remain in your region. why continue using it when you can't justify or explain it and there are more suitable, UNIVERSAL alternatives?
Originally posted by: Perknose
What LEROY here wants we Americans to do is to conform to HIS way in our own motherfucking country, because, WAHHHHHHHHHHHH, he's having a spot of trouble.
No way, LEROY. :|
Wow. Talk about REFUSING to see that the reality of the situation is the exact opposite. Check the plank/board in your eye before pointing at the splinter in someone else's. The reality is that YOUR way is the less dominant, POINTLESS AND UNJUSTIFIABLE way and that YOU are trying to force Americans to conform to YOUR way, when the fact that the rest of the country doesn't understand you means that it is clearly a lost battle. You're like the little boy that calls a sucker/lolipop a "popsicle" and then continues saying that he can call it that if he wants to... even if others don't know what he's talking about when he uses the word and he can't justify it for any other reason or explain why "popsicle" means "room-temperature hard candy on a stick" in his vernacular.
Originally posted by: Perknose
In
Language in the USA by Charles Albert Ferguson, Edward Finegan, Shirley Brice Heath, John R. Rickford, published by the Cambridge Universtity Press, they unequivocally state:
In telling time. AmE prefers a quarter of eleven or quarter till eleven and a quarter after ten or twenty after nine, but can also use the customary BrE ...
Who should we Americans listen to on this, Leroy or these scholars?
:shocked:
Notice the big fat "OR" in that quote, genius?
What you did was equivalent to putting a big fat elipses over the information you wanted to leave out, which would perfectly demonstrate the flaw in your logic where you used this to support your case.
In telling time. AmE prefers ... quarter till eleven and a quarter after ten or twenty after nine, but can also use the customary BrE ...
See? Neither is given as more preferred than the other and yet you seem to think that it bolsters your position. Soon, you will realize that the only reason it was even listed is because the quoted person is aware of your idiomatic use when the vast majority are oblivious to it.
Facebook
Twitter