tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Nov 08 21:28:37 1999
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Re: RE: HoghwIj nI'
chargwI':
: and in military time, we say "thirteen hundred hours" even though
: there are less than a hundred hours in a day.
True enough, though that's not what lies behind the "hundred hours" system.
In the military we write 1 p.m. as 13.00 - note the period; colons are used
for the civilian "o'clock" system - which looks like "thirteen hundred".
To further mix the metaphor, 9 a.m. (for example) is written 09.00 and is
usually pronounced by Americans as "oh nine hundred", reading the first
zero as the letter O.
: Also, for amusement, note that another American military way of
: indicating time is to speak of "Six bells" being 6:00am.
Not exactly. Six bells simply means that three hours of a watch cycle have
passed.
The bell system marks half hour increments of a 4-hour watch aboard ship
and not the time of day, though there is a rough correlation as you'll see.
Historically, one bell was sounded on the bridge every time a 30 minute
hour glass was turned (though today we rely on clocks, usually digital).
One bell means one-half hour of the watch has passed, two bells mean one
hour has passed, etc., up to a total of eight bells, signalling the end of
one 4-hour watch... and the beginning of the next.
If there are six 4-hour watches in a day - to keep it simple I won't
mention the odd suppertime "dog watch" - "six bells" will be sounded six
times a day, every four hours. Since the watch cycle begins at midnight,
this will occur at 03.00, 07.00, 11.00, 15.00, 19.00 and 23.00
respectively. So if you keep track of what part of the day it is you'll be
able to tell the time without looking at a clock.
Note that like the Klingon {'arlogh Qoy'lu'pu'} system, the bell system
does not indicate time intervals less than 30 minutes.
Voragh, Ca'Non Master of the Klingons
(and former U.S. Naval Reserve officer)