this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2025
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Wait, what?
Yep. French Canadian is the same:
9:45 - 10 hours less a quarter
Dix heures moin la quart
8:15 - 8 hours and quarter
Huit heures et quart
How was this allowed to happen
Police cant stop us.
Im cracking up at the police coming because it is illegal to tell the time this way.
Ouvert, c'est la police de la langue!
Have you ever tried to tell the French what to do? :)
Note, it's partly why I respect my fellow French Canadians
In west Germany, it would be viertel vor zehn (quarter before ten) while in the East, it would be dreiviertel zehn (three-quarter ten).
Yay for West Germany
I think it's similar to saying "quarter to ten", and I suspect it's a result of how numbers/counting work in French.
Yeah, as in, if you take a quarter of an hour (15 minutes) from 10, it's 9:45.
They also use minus ten, minus twenty or even minus twenty-five.
Ten hours minus twenty-five is 9:35.
Ten hours minus twenty is 9:40.
Ten hours minus (a/the) quarter is 9:45.
Ten hours minus ten is 9:50.
I find it confusing and never got used to this system. It feels old fashioned and it's not even faster to say. But it's still pretty common while being informal.