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When telling time and 30 minutes has gone past an hour, we say “half past”. For instance, half past 4 or half past 5.

Why can’t we also say “half to”. For instance, half to 5 or half to 6?

Shouldn’t it be a matter of preference, as it is when a glass is said to be half empty or half full?

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    Some expressions are idiomatic and some aren't. In American English, at least, half past is the standard idiom and saying half to would mark you as a poor student of English. OTOH, you can always say whatever you like if you're willing to take the consequences. (segue hyperbolique:) If your language is strange enough, you'll end up in jail or a mental institution, especially if you say whatever you like at an American airport and some zealous narc overhears and decides that you may be a security risk.
    – user21497
    Oct 22, 2012 at 8:39
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    @PeterShor I've never heard 'three quarters past' and it sounds very strange to me. A quick Google search of it throws up few credible results.
    – Ina
    Oct 22, 2012 at 13:13
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    True. But people used to say it. I must have seen it in some old book. Oct 22, 2012 at 13:15
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    alternatively, 6:-30
    – picakhu
    Oct 22, 2012 at 14:17
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    @FumbleFingers: Could be a British England thing; start at half seven sound like it's missing a word to my American ear.
    – J.R.
    Oct 23, 2012 at 13:57

5 Answers 5

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If you make it a matter of personal preference you will defeat one of the purposes of language, which is to make your meaning clear to your listeners or readers. If no one else says half to, you may find that you will be asked to repeat what you have said in some other way. There is also a more direct risk of confusion. In British English, at least, half followed by an hour is used by some to mean half past [hour].

It's perhaps worth adding that in German, by contrast, half followed by an hour does mean 30 minutes before the hour named. Halb eins is not 'half past one', but 'half past twelve'. So there's no cognitive reason why time can't be expressed in this way.

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    German, Russian, Hungarian... see the discussion on this related question.
    – RegDwigнt
    Oct 22, 2012 at 12:12
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    Adding to the confusion, "half to" and "have to" (as in "need to", or "must") can be homophones depending on regional pronunciation.
    – mskfisher
    Oct 22, 2012 at 17:15
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    in Norway they do say half to the hour. That i can almost work with. Ten over half to is more difficult. My wife was a hour early for our first date.
    – user136190
    Sep 1, 2015 at 21:01
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    I think you are basically correct Barry, however this does not really explain why...
    – NeilB
    Nov 14, 2019 at 9:01
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The convention is that we express the time in terms of the hour that it's closest to. "A quarter past nine", not "three-quarters to ten"; but "twenty to ten", not "forty past nine".

"Half past" is, of course, exactly in the middle. The convention is that we say "half past" rather than "half to".

Sure, there would be nothing technically inaccurate about saying "half to". But as Barrie notes, the purpose of language is to convey meaning. If you don't follow standard conventions, it is more difficult for others to understand what you mean. I wouldn't say that you should never break the conventions. But I would say that you should only break the conventions when you have a specific reason to do so, like when you are trying to emphasize something or make a specific point.

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    I don't completely agree that that's the convention. Half to ten might cause me to arch an eyebrow or "alert security," but I don't think forty past ten would get the same "that's odd" reaction. If I was giving the time over the radio, I think "31 minutes past the hour" wouldn't be markedly less acceptable than "29 minutes before the hour." Here's another example.
    – J.R.
    Oct 23, 2012 at 9:53
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    @J.R. Of course if you said "the time is ten forty-two" that would be perfectly normal -- we'd normally write that "the time is 10:42". Given that, I suppose I'd be much less taken aback to hear "forty past ten" then "forty to ten". I'd also be less surprised to hear "forty-five past ten" then "three-quarters past ten".
    – Jay
    Oct 23, 2012 at 13:40
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    Do you have any evidence to support your assertion? Personal opinion is not usually good evidence on its own.
    – NeilB
    Nov 14, 2019 at 8:55
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    @NeilB It's not my opinion, it's my experience as someone who has been hearing English spoken for 60 years. But if you want a citation that my experience is not unusual, here's a web page that doesn't state it the same way I did, but expresses the same idea: englishstudypage.com/grammar/telling-the-time-in-english Oh, and here's one that says it pretty much the same way I said it (not the exact same words, of course): myenglishlanguage.com/essential-vocabulary/telling-time-english
    – Jay
    Nov 14, 2019 at 14:37
  • I think you'll find its 'than' rather than 'then'...
    – NeilB
    Nov 15, 2019 at 17:04
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For all other times on the clock, there are unique identifiers eg quarter past, twenty-five past, twenty-five to, etc.

For half-past you could say half-to, but what would be the point? It means the same, and current accepted usage is half-past, so you might as well use that rather than use odd speech.

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I think it is a contraction, in the same way o'clock is.

When I learnt to tell the time, many years ago - Ponitous was still having flying lessons at the time... I was taught:

"One o'clock, Two o'clock to define the hour, when the long hand is on '12'. It was explained that "o'clock" means: The time "of the clock" or as indicated by the clock.

Therefore, one of the clock simply means one hour indicated by, or of the clock's passage in time.

In the same way, "Half past" the hour is an abbreviation of the 18th or 19th century UK English idiom: "half of the hour past", that is you are half way through the last full hour of the clock, [as indicated by the clock]. Its worth remembering that, at this time [no pun intended], clocks and watches in general use were still relatively 'new technology'.

With time and use, "half of the hour past" was gradually shortened to become simply "half past...".

I seem to remember that in German, they refer to, for example, half past three [drei], as:

"halb vier" (half before four)

This may explain why I'm always late for appointments in Germany!

I am not certain of the reason for this fundamental difference, other than:

  1. German logical thinking
  2. The German sentence construction is significantly different to that used in English

"Half of the hour past" is used here also:

The Holy Thief

Pengarron Land

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    Peters isn't guaranteed to reproduce earlier usages faithfully. And in any case, one would need to examine the equivalent usage for say a quarter to five, and probably ask why 'half of the hour past' didn't model on say 'a quarter of the hour to' instead (so the question still isn't addressed). Nov 14, 2019 at 9:14
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For the reason that anything that is half to is really half past the hour just preceding.

It's probably considered better to state with reference to the past hour than the future hour in this case.

This is just my conjecture, though.

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  • If you conject, please clear it up afterwards....
    – NeilB
    Nov 14, 2019 at 8:53

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