Questions tagged [time]
Topics related to time in written or spoken English
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Using the word "minutes" when saying the time
I have a question regarding the word "minutes" used in the context of telling someone what time it is. Actually, I think there may be regional differences, and, therefore, I have not one but ...
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Timing of adverb after conditional
The sentence in question:
Should you decide to decline the offer, the contract is terminated effective immediately.
My question is about the timing of the word immediately. Would immediately refer ...
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place-place-time
Could you please tell me which one of the following sentences is correct grammatically?
I am giving a talk at the International Congress on Mathematical Physics in Berlin, Germany, in July 2021.
I ...
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Compact writing of "1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 24 and 36-month survival was analysed"
I have an academic paper abstract to write and it has very limited word count (150 words). I have to say that we analysed 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 24 and 36-month survival of the included patients in this ...
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'At a time' or 'in a time'
In the phrase
The quantity of insects in/at a time t is given by i(t).
What is the correct?
Thank you so much!
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time expression for hour ending in 00? [duplicate]
I have the following case: "This will be triggered from hour to hour". So if it is 9:32 the trigger will activate on 10:32. My question is: If I want to say from hour to hour BUT I want to ...
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An old-fashioned way of reading the time
My elderly grandmother, before she passed away, had a very distinct way of reading the time. It has been quite some time since she passed away and I can't quite remember the exact phrasing she used ...
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Ambiguous preposition of time
I am learning English, and would like to know if this sentence means A or B:
I knew that you went there yesterday.
A. You went there, and I knew it yesterday.
B. You went there yesterday, and I knew ...
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"By the year XXXX" means "before the year XXXX", right?
In this Wikipedia article I found the following sentence:
By 1959, discrete transistors were considered sufficiently reliable (...)
But "by 1959" means "not later than 1959", or &...
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How to say "consecutive", but not necessarily one immediately after the other?
I have some event that happens e.g., every year.
I see that there is some strong correlation between the properties of events that occurred in the past, and those that occur in the future. I want to ...
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Hypernym for words that refer to a specific point in time like now, today, tomorrow, and yesterday
Second, minute, hour, ... all fall under 'duration'
But when you want to refer to a specific point in time, like 'now' or 'yesterday' (many languages go way further and have single words for 'next/...
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Clock-related terms starting with "C" and "F" [closed]
Are there any clock-related terms starting with "C" and "F"?
I have a pocket watch with these letters at the bottom, see the picture.
Here I found more examples:
https://i....
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If 'pre' is previous, 'post' is after, and 'peri' is current, what is "initiation"?
In chronology: pre-event, ?-event, peri-event, post-event
Maybe "ini-event" from Latin "initium"?
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Is "set some time on the side" a common phrase?
I was convinced set some time on the side was a correct, fairly common expression. However, I am now in doubt because I can't find it via Google phrase match search. Is it idiomatic English?
For ...
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How can I express the fact that the reason why I wore pants has been the same?
Since the start of the latest lockdowns, I haven't been wearing pants often. The only times when I wear it have been when I meet with a particular friend of mine. Now, I want to express the fact that ...
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Idiom for up-front time investment
Suppose I do something that might be seen as an immediate waste of time, because I think it will save more time in the long-term, be it preventing problems, by solving them faster, or by making future ...
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What verb construction would you use?
Imagine you go down to the station at noon to meet your friend Mike there. You sit there and wait and wait for him to show up. Two hours later your
friend finally arrives and says to you:
Sorry I'm ...
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Saying a period of time of -ties (ex: the 80s to 90s) for a research paper correctly
I'm trying to write a sentence that mentions a specific period of time, though I'm not sure if I wrote it correctly or not. Here's what I have.
We have succeeded in the era of the 1960s to 1980s
...
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When is it necessary or preferable to use 'in the' before a time period? [duplicate]
When is it necessary or preferable to use 'in the' before a time period? Is one sentence more formal? Does the length of time matter?
Example 1: He was born last century. Example 1a: He was born in ...
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Writing Time at the Beginning of a Sentence
I'm a court reporter and can't move words around. Writing out "Three o'clock" at the beginning of a sentence is a given. What to do when the time is 3:01? And the zero creates an ...
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Which prepositions should I need to use when giving an exact time and location?
Which prepositions should I need to use when giving an exact time and location?
For example, I want to say the meeting time is 11:32 and the location is Blah, and both are exact locations and time, so ...
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past or passed?
Please help choose: past or passed.
The newly-crowned first king of Italy announced, "The time of the Roman Empire is _____."
(Please pretend the king spoke English.) I'm writing a ...
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Time or timing?
Which of these sentences is correct? I'm not sure of the reason why:
I think Summer is the best timing to do this
I think Summer is the best time to do this
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"At the beginning" or "during the beginning"?
Are both expressions below valid and equivalent?
"At the beginning …"
"During the beginning …"
"During the beginning …" seems wrong to me.
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The Passive Voice when referring to time [duplicate]
If we say something like "More than two months have passed", would you say this is speaking in the Passive Voice? When you look at the general rules about when to use the Passive Voice, it ...
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How to clarify what you mean by "Standard Time" in relation to time zones?
It seems like the term "Standard Time" in the context of describing a time zone is ambiguous. For example "Pacific Standard Time" could either mean:
As distinct from "...
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Which Friday is the "coming Friday"? [closed]
Suppose today is Wednesday and someone told me to schedule the meeting on the coming Friday. Which Friday would that be? Two days from now or nine days?
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I'll [verb] it now vs. I'm going to [verb] now [closed]
I want to express the fact that I'm about to do something immediately (e.g : close a window, send an email ).
What's the most appropriate form of the future to use in English ?
"I will close it ...
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Does “8am” mean 𝒆𝒙𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒍𝒚 08:00:00.000 in the morning, or does it just mean any time closer to that hour than to either 7:00 or to 9:00? [closed]
Suppose I wanted to indicate the range of time from exactly 8:00am to exactly 8:30am. Should I write “8:00am” for explicitness, or is exactly 8:00am implied by “8am”?
Also, is “2:15pm–2:45pm”, for ...
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Natural way to express availability
I was trying to say this in a sentence:
-I'm only available from Monday to Tuesday 2pm to 4pm. Please come during that time/during those times/in those time window.
But I feel I'm missing something. ...
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The Present Simple tense use
I would like to know why this tense is used instead of the present continuous in the following examples:
As we speak (instead of - as we are speaking) something is taking place
He joins us from (...
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Any difference in meaning/usage between the phrases "from now on" and "as of now"?
Is there a particular difference in meaning or usage between the phrases "as of now" and "from now on"? Could it be said that the first is more formal or is there more to this?
...
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How to write a period of time in formal writing?
I'm working on my thesis and i want to ask whether these formats of dates are correct:
1_ IT lasts from the 8th to the 15th of December, 2019.
2_ From January 26th to Fabruary 2nd, 2020
I also want ...
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Which is a more correct way of referring to an amount of time that has passed since something happened? [duplicate]
I was watching a show where a character made the statement,
It's been years since I've played that game.
I thought that was odd, since I'd have said something like,
It's been years since I played ...
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Does "having" a child refer to when the child was conceived, or to the time of their birth?
If I was conceived during a romantic vacation in Paris but was born some months later in Ohio, would it be right to say "my parents had me in Paris" or "my parents had me in Ohio"? ...
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Which sentence is right: "On Saturdays I play video games." vs "I play video games on Saturdays"?
Which sentence is correct:
On Saturdays I play video games.
I play video games on Saturdays.
I think that both are correct but I got this sentence as incorrect in a test.
I searched the web for ...
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What class of word are "to" and "past" in "ten past two", "five to three" etc
When talking about times,
5:30 can be read "half past five"
5:40 can be read "twenty to six"
etc.
What is the name of this type of word: to or past, in that context?
I'm not sure ...
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Will and would modal verbs [closed]
Which of the following sentences is correct? If both are correct, what is
the difference in meaning between these two sentences?
A majority of voters approved changes to Russia’s Constitution that ...
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3
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How to understand time through sentences?
I have a hard time understanding where someone refers to time in sentences. For example, "The manager of the team X is in Spain". There have been many managers through time for a single team....
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What's the difference in usage for 'there's a time' vs. 'there's time' vs. 'there's the time'? [closed]
What's the difference in usage for 'there's a time' vs. 'there's time' vs. 'there's the time'?
Is the last one even correct?
Similarly, what's the difference between 'it was a time' vs. 'it was the ...
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What time period does 'until last week' include?
What time period does 'until last week' include?
In the following sentence - 'Here are the letters I recieved from John, until last week'. Would the list of letters also include the ones I recieved ...
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Use of Grade Levels Instead of Age [closed]
Why do Americans use grade levels to indicate the passage of time instead of actual age? (i.e. “When I was in 12th grade” vs. “When I was 17, 18, etc.)
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Does "moving a meeting forward" mean the time will be earlier or later?
Suppose I say "We're moving the 12 PM meeting forward 2 hours", does that mean the meeting is at 10 AM or 2 PM?
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Two words related to "anachronism" but having exclusive references to past and future
I'd like to identify two words related to anachronism: one having an exclusive association to past, and the other to future.
According to Lexico, anachronism means:
A thing belonging or appropriate ...
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Preposition "in/on" when referring to a date range
This question is different from On vs At with date and time.
I am trying to write a sentence saying that some conversation happened at a conference "in/on" May 1--6. I am having a hard time choosing ...
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Should it always be "when someone did action X someone else HAD done action Y?"
I have encountered this sentence: "She was dancing when he started to play music"
From what I know, it should be: "She had been dancing when he started to play music"
My question is: is the first ...
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Adjective or noun for "uses rules that are commonly accepted even if not consistent"
I'm working on defining technical terms to explain three ways to calculate the length of time between two points in time despite the oddities of Daylight Saving Time (DST):
Always use real-world ...
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In England and other 24-hour-clock places, is it valid/common to say "sixteen o'clock" etc.?
I just heard Winnie-the-Pooh claim that his clock (which doesn't seem to function at all) is "sixteen o'clock".
I assume that this was meant as a joke by the silly old bear.
However, they do have a ...
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Time of day between morning and noon
My native language is German, and I also speak English quite well. But there is one thing that has puzzled me for years, and I still haven't found an answer. It's about the names of times during a ...
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Can 'this', as in 'this day' or 'on this day' be used for future reference?
I have recently stumbled upon this sentence:
5th June is perfect. Do you think you can come this day?
The time frame of the utterance was more than two weeks before the date mentioned. And I am ...
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