Re: Heroes, a plaque?

On Aug 8, 1:55 am, Ric Locke <warlo...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 07 Aug 2007 21:45:29 -0000, MikeQ wrote:
On Aug 7, 11:10 pm, zebo...@xxxxxxxxx (Zeborah) wrote:
MikeQ <michael.qvort...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Aug 7, 2:44 pm, Aqua <a...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
MikeQ wrote:
[...]
(Time-of-day: 'halv fire' - literally half four - is 3:30).

That's the 'less' part. This usage is not commonly idiomatic in
many/most varieties of English; I learnt it as a foreign thing when I
came to German. In English, half and four / four and a half is 4.5.
Danish parses the term by subtraction, English by addition.

Well, looking at it that way, I guess there is a subtraction
in there. The way I was taught it long ago in school was a
half _before_ four, ie. you never got to the four and the subtracted
a half; you stopped before you got that far. Note that in
Danish, there is no 'and' between the 'half' and 'for'.

I guess that's what you get for arguing language in a news
group dedicated to writing :-)

Regards,
Michael

As it was explained to me, the usage is still common in German, but only
among the older people. "bei halp sieben" is entirely too early to get
up in the morning.

'um halb sieben', actually, but that is a nit

I don't know - I get up earlier than that. On second thought,
yes, it is too early :-)

'Still common'? I'd think it was the prevalent form. The
alternative would be to say 'sechs Uhr dreissig' and that
sounds very formal. The Swiss might use their version
of that form ('sächsi driisg') more than the Germans use
theirs, but 'halbi siebni' is far more common.

Regards,
MikeQ
PS: Swiss German orthography is not standardised,
is regionally very varied - any examples should be taken
as approximations :-)

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