Horology

[Antique Art Deco wooden mantel clock. Manufactured by Haller Foreign, Germany]

I learned yesterday, that is to say Thursday, of childish tensions in the horological world of the 1950's, when clocks something like that snapped above were common enough. With this particular one being turned up by Bing out of Etsy, that is to say the people at reference 1.

The problem for children arose from the fact that some adults liked to tell the time with reference to the cardinal points, rather in the way of reading off the direction from a compass. So one might say, in this case, 'spot on a quarter past eleven'. Or in another, 'a little after twenty past three'. Which was fair enough, particularly since plenty of clock faces did not show minute divisions. And plenty were not accurate to the minute anyway.

But some adults, perhaps those with an armed forces or institutional background, liked their time to be digital, so 11:15 or 03:22. That was the way that things were done.

So the problem for the child, when dealing with an unknown adult who might well get stroppy about such matters, was knowing how they liked their time - without actually asking them. An awkward question for a child to get his or her brain around, a question which might in itself irritate the adult concerned.

Next time I come across an active primary teacher I shall inquire how things have panned out since the 1950's.

PS 1: there is of course the further confusion of the 24 hour clock. But I dare say that, even in the 1950's, most adults agreed that children under the age of 16 did not need to both with that.

PS 2: in the margins of this post I have learned something about the prevalence of epilepsy in the US from the abstract and highlights of reference 3, this being all that you get for free. So about 1% of the US adult population are active epileptics. While adding references 4 and 5 to the mix, I think that Blacks have an increased risk, while Hispanics have a decreased risk. But a topic which is fraught with both racial and statistical difficulties - which I shall not be investigating further.

References

Reference 1: https://www.etsy.com/. Haller Foreign is presumably a typo. See next reference.

Reference 2: http://www.haller-clock.com/en/home/.

Reference 3:Active epilepsy prevalence among U.S. adults is 1.1% and differs by educational level—National Health Interview Survey, United States, 2021 - Rosemarie Kobau, Cecily Luncheon, Kurt Greenlund - 2023.

Reference 4: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/.

Reference 5: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/23/key-facts-about-u-s-latinos-for-national-hispanic-heritage-month/. The source of the population snap above.