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Comment by larrik | Hacker News Reader

I actually didn't realize am/pm wasn't something Europeans did...

UK'ians do use it. French, Germans, Swiss, BeNeLux, Italians, Spanish, Polish not. Don't know about the rest, but would be surprised if anyone in Europe but the UK used it.

For written times, no. If you're arranging to meet a friend you'd write "see you at 2030", but you'd say "eight thirty" out loud.

We love what US calls “military time”

24h clock isn't exactly military time.

14:30 in military time would be fourteen hundred thirty hours, or one-four-three-zero hours, or in written format 1430Z, Z being Zulu (UTC), or an actual offset.

"military time" is a 24 hour clock.

14:30 is almost without exception read as "fourteen thirty" in military time.

I've never seen it either of the ways you describe above.

They still know what it means though. Clocks are still divided into 12 in Europe.

Not if you don't have to use it for whatever reason. Personally I never learned the difference between am and pm before I got a job where I had to interact with people who used it. Still not sure if noon/midnight is 12am or 12 pm though ...

In Greece it's sometimes used.

10:00π.μ. = 10:00 προ μεσημβρίας = 10:00 before noon

10:00μ.μ. = 10:00 μετά μεσημβρίαν = 10:00 after noon

Transliterating this into the Latin alphabet is fun since it gives "p.m." for before noon.

Indeed! My mother once mistakenly put an alarm for 6π.μ. thinking it was 6p.m., and suddenly at 6am in the morning it was blasting off for no reason.

That's what living for so many years in another country does to your native tongue

Uh, they invented it. I guess they forgot.

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