NavList:

David C, you wrote:
"I learn something new every day. It took a 1767 almanac to teach me that 11 o'clock is short for 11 of the clock. I never knew that."

Heh :). Yeah, it's always funny when we find these little tidbits of knowledge that have gotten by us for so many years.

I would argue, too, that there is some linguistic technical confusion here. There's a difference between a common contraction and an etymological contraction. If I say, "I can't attend. I'm busy. I'll see you next time." You know without thinking that "can't" is a contraction of "can not", and "I'm" is "I am", and "I'll is "I will". Furthermore if I said exactly the same thing without the contractions, "I can not attend. I am busy. I will see you next time", the words would have very nearly the same meaning (the uncontracted forms suggesting a slight additional emphasis, and that is all).

The word "o'clock" is a contraction only by its historical origin, its etymology, and that makes it different from common contractions. If I say, "See you at two o'clock" you know what I mean. If I say, "See you at two of the clock" you would be puzzled and probably would wonder if I am some sort of antiquarian weirdo if you're actually familiar with the origin of the word "o'clock". Nobody says "two of the clock" or "two on the clock" anymore. The original form, whatever it may have been, is entirely obsolete. Nodbody talks that way.

This distinction between a contraction in an etymology and a common contraction is real, but some people can't see it, and it has even led to debate in puzzles. I remember some years back on the television game show "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?" [I believe that was the game] a contestant was asked to identify contractions [or some such question], and the answer included "o'clock" as an option. Some small controversy ensued.

By the way, the origin of "o'clock" is described a bit in the Wikipedia article on 12-hour time, which also gets into a tricky topic in the colloquial language of time, at least in English, that you, David C, mentioned a few weeks or months ago in passing: does it make sense to refer to midnight as 12:00am and noon as 12:00pm? Formally, no, it doesn't make sense. But common usage wins out. Many sources, as noted in the article, recommend avoiding the problem entirely by using the expressions "12:00 noon" and "12:00 midnight" exclusively. Of course, there is still the problem of "00:00 midnight" which is the same instant as "12:00 midnight" but there's a subtle accounting difference. The latter, 00:00, explicity belong to time-keeping for the following day. The former is ambiguous, but usually 12:00 midnight is attached to the day just ending. In fact, this small distinction comes up quite explicity in navigation when dealing with data in nautical almanacs, whether from 2024 or 1767 or any other year! So we have looped back. :)

Frank Reed