Noon or midnight arenât arbitrary. Theyâre the exact opposite. Noon is the middle of the day. The exact middle point of one revolution of our planet (roughly, days arenât actually exactly a day long but thatâs too advanced for you lol).
The exact middle of the day, recognisable to most people simply by looking up, is the exact opposite of arbitrary.
Numbers have no inherent meaning
Uh, yes they do. Thatâs why theyâre called numbers. â2â means || that many things and â5â means ||||| means that many things. Thereâs literally an inherent meaning in them.
Thereâs also actual reason as to why the day is divided the way it is, but seeing how proud you are of your overbearing ignorance, Iâm not gonna educate you on what it is.
Hours werenât always the same length, itâd depend on the length of the time of day. Do you know what doesnât change? Noon being in the middle of the day. Because weâre on a revolving piece of rock in space and no matter how much you stomp your foot and cry foul, noon will still always be non-arbitrary
What you need is a fkin dictionary bruh
Sounds like the answer is âfine.â
Ah, some deeply meaningful willfull ignorance, because you canât admit you backed a moronic idea.
I didnât say they were. I said that the numbers weâve attached to them are.
(roughly, days arenât actually exactly a day long but thatâs too advanced for you lol).
Strong words from someone who only reads three out of every five words.
The exact middle of the day, recognisable to most people simply by looking up, is the exact opposite of arbitrary.
Calling it the âmiddle of the dayâ is. It could very easily be the beginning of the day, or three-quarters of the way through the day. If you had lived with that your whole life, you would think it was normal.
Thereâs literally an inherent meaning in [numbers].
Not as theyâre used in timekeeping. Iâm sorry, I didnât realize I needed to explain something so simple to you as âthe words I use are meant to be interpreted in the context in which Iâm using them.â
Thereâs also actual reason as to why the day is divided the way it is, but seeing how proud you are of your overbearing ignorance, Iâm not gonna educate you on what it is.
Thatâs a lot of words to say âI donât know but thereâs probably a reason.â
The real reason is âbecause the ancient Egyptians arbitrarily decided to divide it into twelve hours.â As for indexing solar noon as 12:00, well, it actually didnât always; in fact, the word ânoonâ comes from the Latin word for ânine.â The first hour of the day (when people woke up) was 1:00, roughly analogous to our 6am, and nine hours later (our 3pm) was ânoon.â The reason it became solar noon was that they observed a sort of coordinated universal time! Noon drifted earlier in the day as the center of culture drifted.
Hours werenât always the same length, itâd depend on the length of the time of day. Do you know what doesnât change? Noon being in the middle of the day.
Sure it does. Other cultures make noon the beginning of the day, or make sunset the beginning of the day. Yes it changes the lengths of time periods. You only think itâs weird because youâve always known a world where noon was the middle of the day.
Because weâre on a revolving piece of rock in space and no matter how much you stomp your foot and cry foul, noon will still always be non-arbitrary
True. But noon as equal to 1200 will always be arbitrary, because weâre on a rock in space and it didnât come with any numbers on it.
Ah, some deeply meaningful willfull ignorance, because you canât admit you backed a moronic idea.
Once again, I beg you to actually use some reading comprehension. I havenât backed any ideas. But itâs easier to sling insults than to read carefully and come up with a cogent response.
You keep with your naive argument about noon being arbitrary and pretend as if your proposal isnât like climbing up a tree arse first.
Youâre just wrong.
With your system, if you woke up after drinking for days, not knowing literally where on Earth you are, you would see a restaurant, read the sign and still have zero idea when it was open. Youâd need to know where you are and âwhenâ the times are. Ridiculous
With the regular system, you wake up anywhere in the world, look up at the sky, see itâs roughly noon, and see a sign on a restaurant saying its open 10-21, you know you can walk in and eat.
Youâre trying to make yourself out as logical, but youâre failing very fucking hard.
Itâs called the middle of the day, because itâs in the middle of the day. Before it thereâs an equal amount of light as after it. Youre honestly going to stand here arguing that high-noon being in the middle of a DAY is arbitrary, without smelling a hint of irony?
Take a thing. Divide it exactly in half. Can you cut at an arbitrary point to make that happen� Or is there like a thing where if you choose the exact point in the middle of that thing (like, an exact point, not an arbitrary one), then you get two halves which are exactly the same size?
Youâre clearly upset and projecting. Is English your first language? Itâs honestly amazing how often I end up correcting Americans on how to use English.
Sure it does. Other cultures make noon the beginning of the day, or make sunset the beginning of the day
You didnât understand the point. I was talking about Romans. Happy desperate googling, mr angry-like-a-wet-cat!
You saying a thing doesnât make it so. For instance I could say that literally every word you said was arbitrary. It doesnât make it so, does it? Also, trying to use prescriptivism shows just how lacking you are in your linguistics conversational.
Me purposefully not replying to each of your childish retorts wouldnât help anything. Youâre just wrong but youâll never be able to accept it. Youâll equivocate, possibly for weeks even.
You keep with your naive argument about noon being arbitrary and pretend as if your proposal isnât like climbing up a tree arse first.
I donât have any proposal at all, and until you get that into your head, I just donât see how you can possibly have enough of a basis to even continue this conversation intelligently.
Youâre just wrong.
Citation needed.
With your system,
I. Donât. Have. A. System.
if you woke up after drinking for days, not knowing literally where on Earth you are, you would see a restaurant, read the sign and still have zero idea when it was open. Youâd need to know where you are and âwhenâ the times are. Ridiculous
Bro, other languages exist. If you woke up after drinking for days, itâs entirely likely that you wonât be able to read the words on the sign and know whether itâs a restaurant or a nursing home or a gambling parlor.
Itâs called the middle of the day, because itâs in the middle of the day.
That thereâs what we call a tautology.
Before it thereâs an equal amount of light as after it. Youre honestly going to stand here arguing that high-noon being in the middle of a DAY is arbitrary, without smelling a hint of irony?
Nope. But you still arenât actually dealing with the reality that Iâm not saying the word ânoonâ is arbitrary, Iâm saying that the numbers weâve assigned to it are. Remember, in the twelve hour clock, noon happens at the end of one set of numbers and at the beginning of the other set. In some timekeeping systems itâs even weirder. Other choices could and have been made, and are even still in use.
Iâm begging you. Give some indication that you are at all literate here.
Youâre clearly upset and projecting. Is English your first language? Itâs honestly amazing how often I end up correcting Americans on how to use English.
Not sure what youâre talking about. Iâm having a great time watching you make a fool of yourself and froth at the mouth about how intelligent you are. Itâs hilarious.
You didnât understand the point. I was talking about Romans. Happy desperate googling, mr angry-like-a-wet-cat!
Aw, sorry, I already noted that youâre angry. You canât âno uâ that one back at me. Iâm deducting five indignation points.
You saying a thing doesnât make it so. For instance I could say that literally every word you said was arbitrary. It doesnât make it so, does it? Also, trying to use prescriptivism shows just how lacking you are in your linguistics conversational.
âŠeh? Iâm very clearly not being prescriptivist, since Iâm the one taking about how the word has been used differently through time.
Are you feeding my posts to ChatGPT and asking for responses?
Me purposefully not replying to each of your childish retorts wouldnât help anything.
Ah, classic. âI donât have an actual argument, so Iâll pretend like making one is beneath me and hope the other person makes it for meâŠâ
Youâre just wrong but youâll never be able to accept it. Youâll equivocate, possibly for weeks even.
ââŠand then Iâll preemptively lay the table for me to exit the conversation with righteous indignation when Iâve used up all of my insults or gotten bored.â Love it. Well done.
You donât understand what the word âarbitraryâ means, lol.
I havenât laughed this hard in weeks.
I. Donât. Have. A. System.
With your imagined system of âif everyone had always lived with random ass times they would feel as normal as they do nowâ.
No, they wouldnât, because unlike your ignorant-ass thinks, they arenât arbitrary. You donât understand the basic history of timekeeping and you have an utterly childish point, which is also wrong. Yes I know youâre not directly proposing the use of another system, implications exist. Youâre just backing up on everything youâve said after I rub your face in how stupid itâs been, then you pretend you donât have a face full of poo.
Itâs ridiculous.
I speak 2 languages on a native level, one or two more fluently and a half a dozen in a âI could order in a restaurantâ level. Iâm pretty sure I know more expressions about time in more languages than you. How many languages do you speak?
itâs entirely likely that you wonât be able to read the words on the sign
This is why I keep replying. Youâre hilariously ironic. Remember you insisting how ânumbers are inherently meaninglessâ? Scripts and languages change, sure, but most of the world uses Arabic numerals. :D It doesnât matter if you donât know the local language or âwhat time local noon isâ or even if theyâre using the same alphabet, youâll still recognise a number like 14:00 - 03:00 and then look up at the sky and itâs not yet noon and youâll know youâll have to wait several hours at least.
With as with an actually arbitrary system you might see numbers like 0748-5531 and have no fucking idea if itâs even a time or even if it is a time, what time itâs referring to, even if you know itâs exactly midday.
But youâll not admit that laughable. Which in itself amuses me.
That thereâs what we call a tautology.
No shit, thatâs why Iâm laughing at you. Youâre pretending like ânoonâ means nine because of its etymology, as in youâre pretending as if you understand linguistics, when you donât understand that ignoring itâs actual descriptive meaning of âmid-dayâ (which is why itâs "high noon, because thatâs describing the position of the sun) is something even a first year linguist would never do. Hell, even if you had just read the basic wiki entry youâd know how ridiculous that is. But youâre not about learning, youâre about pretending you know things.
Iâm saying that the numbers weâve assigned to it are
And Iâm saying you are wrong in that. Because you are. You are wrong in saying that. Do you understand? You are incorrect. It is not arbitrary. Even the number 12 isnât arbitrary, neither is 24 or 100. Thatâs not what the word means, sweetums. <3
Not sure what youâre talking about
Yes, Iâm perfectly aware. Watching you prance around pretending to be smart is like watching toddlers bake mud cakes. Itâs cute how they think theyâre doing a credible job and you just have to act along so they can enjoy themselves. :)
âŠeh? Iâm very clearly not being prescriptivis
Honestly youâre literally making my sides hurt
Oh Iâm not going anywhere, hunny. Youâre better entertainment than this show Iâm watching.
You donât understand what the word âarbitraryâ means, lol.
Well, if you said it, it must be true.
With your imagined system of âif everyone had always lived with random ass times they would feel as normal as they do nowâ.
So wait, is this a pivot, or are you still trying to claim that Iâm advocating for this? I have completely lost track of what youâre framing your abusive posts on now.
Anyway, your imagined system of âsomehow the fact that the time when people wake up is called 0600 is inherent to our biology or orbital dynamics or whateverâ is absolutely not more logical than the system that the OP has asked about. Itâs just as arbitrary (hey, yeah, look, I still know what that means!).
You donât understand the basic history of timekeeping
Once again proving that you havenât read the previous posts Iâve made. Come on, dude. Simple reading. Thatâs all Iâm asking for.
and you have an utterly childish point, which is also wrong.
You have yet to actually prove this. Made lots of assertions, but youâre just screaming ânuh-uh! YOU are!â over and over at this point and then spiking the conversational football as if it does anything.
Youâre just backing up on everything youâve said after I rub your face in how stupid itâs been, then you pretend you donât have a face full of poo.
Finally discovering what I was actually saying because you actually decided to go back and read it this time doesnât count as âbacking up.â Iâve been saying the same thing this whole time.
I speak 2 languages on a native level, one or two more fluently and a half a dozen in a âI could order in a restaurantâ level. Iâm pretty sure I know more expressions about time in more languages than you. How many languages do you speak?
âŠcongratulations? Iâm not sure how thatâs relevant in any way to anything. If itâs really important to you: youâre very smart and special. I bet you make your parents proud.
It doesnât matter if you donât know the local language or âwhat time local noon isâ or even if theyâre using the same alphabet, youâll still recognise a number like 14:00 - 03:00 and then look up at the sky and itâs not yet noon and youâll know youâll have to wait several hours at least.
Maybe. Or youâll walk up to the door of a veterinarian and wait around for five hours before you realize that people are bringing animals into the place, not walking out with food. Thereâs also the problem of not knowing whether itâs before noon or after noon (so a sign that says theyâre open for lunch from 1000-1800 would be useless if the sun is in a position where it could easily be 0700 or 1900). Or not being able to see the sun due to clouds or night or being inside. What Iâm saying is that there are bigger problems involved in the situation you brought up, which is why I doubt anyone would care to solve the time problem. In this fictional, made-up world where the history of timekeeping went a little bit differently. Which youâve somehow decided merits insulting me, despite you not actually having an argument that makes any logical sense. (Or at least not one youâre willing to share with the class)
But youâll not admit that laughable. Which in itself amuses me.
I admit itâs absolutely laughable! You know what else is absolutely laughable? The idea that the current system makes any more sense! If youâre trying to coordinate an event with someone just a few miles away but across a time zone boundary in our current system, you have to go to great pains to sort everything out and make sure nobody arrives an hour early or an hour late. Or, even worse, two hours early (which happened once to a friend of mine when he did the time zone math backwards). Despite being just miles apart, and not being able to see any appreciable visible difference between the sun. Thatâs laughable, too.
âOh, but we have tools to deal with itâ or âoh, but we can figure it outâ or âoh, git gud, noobââand yeah, weâre used to it because we grew up with it and our parents grew up with it and our teachers grew up with it for generations and generations. If it had gone the other way, we wouldâve developed different tools to deal with it, different ways of figuring it out, and we wouldâve gotten good at other ways of keeping time. Thatâs literally my entire point.
All of this is laughable. Itâs all arbitrary (yep, still got it) and hilarious because we made it all up. All models are wrong (including timekeeping). Some are useful.
Youâre pretending like ânoonâ means nine because of its etymology, as in youâre pretending as if you understand linguistics, when you donât understand that ignoring itâs actual descriptive meaning of âmid-dayâ (which is why itâs "high noon, because thatâs describing the position of the sun) is something even a first year linguist would never do.
Your refusal to read in favor of just assuming what I mean is showing again.
But youâre not about learning, youâre about pretending you know things.
Aw, buddy. You think youâre teaching me anything? If you had anything to teach me, that would be a welcome change. I love learning things. But you seem to be in âdunk modeâ and absolutely furious that I keep refusing to let you dunk on me.
And Iâm saying you are wrong in that. Because you are. You are wrong in saying that. Do you understand? You are incorrect. It is not arbitrary. Even the number 12 isnât arbitrary, neither is 24 or 100. Thatâs not what the word means, sweetums. <3
You seriously think that assigning 12 to ânoonâ is inherent, babycakes? You literally believe that thereâs no other way that we couldâve matched up numbers to the time of day, pumpkin? Like thereâs not other ways of keeping time that used different numbers or even words instead of the digits youâre familiar with on the clocks you own, honeybunch?
We agreed on 1200 as noon. Thatâs why it works, and thatâs the only reason it works. If we had decided that noon would be 0000 or 1800 or âthe sixth hourâ or whatever, youâd be screaming your pretty little head off that Iâm ridiculous for suggesting that 1200 makes as much sense as anything else. The decision has historical precedent, but itâs scientifically arbitrary (boom, still know that word). The planet doesnât care whether we call it 1200 or d3:12:1h::23 or Xylophone, itâll still rotate to put us under the sun at that time.
Yes, Iâm perfectly aware. Watching you prance around pretending to be smart is like watching toddlers bake mud cakes. Itâs cute how they think theyâre doing a credible job and you just have to act along so they can enjoy themselves. :)
Having been a parent of a toddler, I can tell you itâs definitely nothing like that. For one thing, toddlers baking mud cakes is adorable, and I definitely am not adorable.
Oh Iâm not going anywhere, hunny. Youâre better entertainment than this show Iâm watching.
Iâm so happy to be of service, sweetie-pie. You have a great day now, 'k?
Itâs true, because itâs true. You saying something is âarbitraryâ because you donât understand the reason is very stupid indeed. Really American, I might say.
You talk about non-sequiturs (again like a teenager horny to pretend to be a philosopher who actually doesnât know jack shit), while arguing about age. Itâs hilarious.
You still donât know what âarbitraryâ means. 12, 24, 30, even 100 hour systems are in no way arbitrary.
You donât understand what âimplicationâ means either.
Damn, I could be having this conversation in several other languages, but I presume this is your âbestâ and all you manage is to whinge about how your mudcakes are actual food and stomp your food and cry on the ground until I pretend to eat one to make you happy.
No you havenât âread a book about timekeepingâ, youâre just a kiddo American feeling mighty stupid that someone is mocking them.
Like I told you, Iâll eventually tell you the answers, even though theyâre pretty damn obvious for people who have actually read books about timekeeping. I mean roflmao why the fuck would you think of such a childish lie? This is why America is ridiculed. Your president being what it is has given you a false sense of how much regulate people can get away with asinine bullshitting.
You brought up language skills, and now try to make it seem like you didnât think it important anyway. Seriously, I canât think of a more childish way of going about that.
Remember how you didnât notice anything about the divisibility of hours? Why are there no systems based on a prime number of hours, huh?
Oh Iâve read your posts. Iâm just gonna keep you publicly shaming yourself so the bots have time to archive your stupidity for the rest of the world before you delete in all in an attack of shame when I finally do educate you
Or not being able to see the sun due to clouds or night or being inside
Surely youâre not this fucking stupid. You just canât be.
âHey is it day or night out?â
âUh, I canât tell, itâs so cloudyâ
âOh no, Iâm inside, I have no way of knowing where the sun is, because all our buildings are shipping crates with no windowsâ
âOh no, itâs night, and all the markers in the sky are clearly visible, what to do now?â
You âread a book about timekeepingâ recentlyâŠ?
I am not and have not argued you at any point. You are my entertainment. Just like I wouldnât fight a kid, I wonât argue you.
Youâre still grossly misusing âarbitraryâ. I understand youâre linguistically challenged so here:
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
adjective 1.
based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
A tautology isnât a reason, itâs a logical fallacy. Maybe even a religion. This would be a really weird religion to have a holy war over.
saying something is âarbitraryâ because you donât understand the reason
As opposed to just insisting that something isnât because you donât know the reason, like you seem to be doing? Prove me wrong. Provide any evidence. Or honestly even just a claim, a claim would at least be something worth discussing.
Really American, I might say.
Well, youâre not wrong there.
You still donât know what âarbitraryâ means. 12, 24, 30, even 100 hour systems are in no way arbitrary.
So they came from the universe factory with those meanings already imbued in them?
You donât understand what âimplicationâ means either.
Come on, man. Make a claim. Even make a bogus claim. But donât just attack me for the fact that you donât understand my language.
all you manage is to whinge about how your mudcakes are actual food and stomp your food and cry on the ground until I pretend to eat one to make you happy.
Do I? Youâre the one thatâs been slinging insults since the moment you showed up, and âpretending to eat oneâ would mean telling me what you think is right instead of trying to verbally abuse me until I admit that you were right, even though you havenât actually said anything that could be right or wrong yet.
No you havenât âread a book about timekeepingâ,
Honestly now Iâm wondering if it was a video series. I donât see it in my reading log anywhere. But it was a long time ago, so maybe it was before I started logging books.
youâre just a kiddo American feeling mighty stupid that someone is mocking them.
Youâre not âmockingâ me. Youâre shouting random nonsense from the opposing sidewalk and hoping that some of it makes sense.
Like I told you, Iâll eventually tell you the answers,
Press X to doubt.
even though theyâre pretty damn obvious for people who have actually read books about timekeeping.
Then it should be pretty easy to point me toward one of these books, shouldnât it?
This is why America is ridiculed.
There are a lot of reasons why America is ridiculed, and most of them are justified.
You brought up language skills, and now try to make it seem like you didnât think it important anyway.
Pretty sure I never said anything about the number of languages one speaks being important.
Oh Iâve read your posts.
Citation needed.
Iâm just gonna keep you publicly shaming yourself so the bots have time to archive your stupidity for the rest of the world before you delete in all in an attack of shame when I finally do educate you
Wow, you really donât know me.
âHey is it day or night out?â
âUh, I canât tell, itâs so cloudyâ
âHey, when does this restaurant open?â
âThe sign says 11:00, but I donât know what time it is. Or what day it is; it opens at 16:00 on Saturdays and not at all on Tuesdays.â
âWell, I see by the sun that itâs either a couple of hours before or after noon, or weâre at an extreme edge of the time zone and itâs exactly noon. So I guess rather than trying to find someone to ask or a restaurant thatâs clearly open, we should just wait in front of this door for an indeterminate amount of time.â
You âread a book about timekeepingâ recentlyâŠ?
If I said ârecently,â I misspoke. It was a long time ago.
I am not and have not argued you at any point.
This is literally what youâre doing now. The first definition of âargumentâ is âan exchange of diverging or opposite views, typically a heated or angry one.â I have a diverging view from you, apparently (even though you wonât actually tell me what it is), and youâre super heated about it for some reason.
Youâre still grossly misusing âarbitraryâ.
Based on the definition that you provided, Iâm using it perfectly:
based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
The choice to divide the day into twelve hours was based on the personal whim of the ancient Egyptians. They found a particular set of twelve constellations to be important, but by random choice they might well have found a different set of, say, eight constellations to be important. Or sixteen. Or ten.
The choice to begin the day (and thus the numbering of the day) twelve hours before noon was based on the personal whim of the Romans. Maybe they liked some aspects of the choice better than starting the day six hours before noon like Jewish rabbis did, or at noon itself. They may have justified it with a good reason, but the people who chose otherwise would have justified their choice with a good reason as well; so for humanity as a whole, it is arbitrary.
The choice to mark out time zones within which all hours are indexed to the local noon was also made on the personal whim ofâŠsome railroad guy (I canât remember his name) in the 19th century. He knew that the then-current system of every railway having their own time and every city along the railroad having a different local time was a bad idea (it was), but he could just as easily have chosen a UTC and suggested that the trains run on a truly universal UTC. Would it have caught on? Who knows? But weâre presuming for the sake of this discussion a world in which it did.
A tautology isnât a reason. A reason is a reason. Just like how arbitrary things are arbitrary and how numbers have inherent value.
Youâve made several claims. Then when I point out the moronic bullshit youâve said you equivocate, despite having a room-temp IQ and everyone seeing how wrong you are. Itâs hilarious.
Yes, youâre ânow wondering if it was a video seriesâ. Sure you are. As if you didnât know that you donât read books. Youâre not only stupid as fuck, youâre also the worst liar Iâve seen in years.
One of the reasons Americans are mocked is because they try claiming things which everyone can see are incorrect.
Like I said, itâs like watching an excited toddler playing kitchen.
No, you didnât âmisspeakâ, youâre just a very shitty liar.
rather than any reason or system.
Having a hard time understanding this sentence?
I speak a dozen languages, but you donât even speak one, so the communication issue isnât due to a lack of MY ability. ;>
Youâre wrong and a moron. Several times over. Run and cry I donât care, it wonât change the facts.
You donât know what âarbitraryâ meansâŠ
Noon or midnight arenât arbitrary. Theyâre the exact opposite. Noon is the middle of the day. The exact middle point of one revolution of our planet (roughly, days arenât actually exactly a day long but thatâs too advanced for you lol).
The exact middle of the day, recognisable to most people simply by looking up, is the exact opposite of arbitrary.
Uh, yes they do. Thatâs why theyâre called numbers. â2â means || that many things and â5â means ||||| means that many things. Thereâs literally an inherent meaning in them.
Thereâs also actual reason as to why the day is divided the way it is, but seeing how proud you are of your overbearing ignorance, Iâm not gonna educate you on what it is.
Hours werenât always the same length, itâd depend on the length of the time of day. Do you know what doesnât change? Noon being in the middle of the day. Because weâre on a revolving piece of rock in space and no matter how much you stomp your foot and cry foul, noon will still always be non-arbitrary
What you need is a fkin dictionary bruh
Ah, some deeply meaningful willfull ignorance, because you canât admit you backed a moronic idea.
I didnât say they were. I said that the numbers weâve attached to them are.
Strong words from someone who only reads three out of every five words.
Calling it the âmiddle of the dayâ is. It could very easily be the beginning of the day, or three-quarters of the way through the day. If you had lived with that your whole life, you would think it was normal.
Not as theyâre used in timekeeping. Iâm sorry, I didnât realize I needed to explain something so simple to you as âthe words I use are meant to be interpreted in the context in which Iâm using them.â
Thatâs a lot of words to say âI donât know but thereâs probably a reason.â
The real reason is âbecause the ancient Egyptians arbitrarily decided to divide it into twelve hours.â As for indexing solar noon as 12:00, well, it actually didnât always; in fact, the word ânoonâ comes from the Latin word for ânine.â The first hour of the day (when people woke up) was 1:00, roughly analogous to our 6am, and nine hours later (our 3pm) was ânoon.â The reason it became solar noon was that they observed a sort of coordinated universal time! Noon drifted earlier in the day as the center of culture drifted.
Sure it does. Other cultures make noon the beginning of the day, or make sunset the beginning of the day. Yes it changes the lengths of time periods. You only think itâs weird because youâve always known a world where noon was the middle of the day.
True. But noon as equal to 1200 will always be arbitrary, because weâre on a rock in space and it didnât come with any numbers on it.
Once again, I beg you to actually use some reading comprehension. I havenât backed any ideas. But itâs easier to sling insults than to read carefully and come up with a cogent response.
You keep with your naive argument about noon being arbitrary and pretend as if your proposal isnât like climbing up a tree arse first.
Youâre just wrong.
With your system, if you woke up after drinking for days, not knowing literally where on Earth you are, you would see a restaurant, read the sign and still have zero idea when it was open. Youâd need to know where you are and âwhenâ the times are. Ridiculous
With the regular system, you wake up anywhere in the world, look up at the sky, see itâs roughly noon, and see a sign on a restaurant saying its open 10-21, you know you can walk in and eat.
Youâre trying to make yourself out as logical, but youâre failing very fucking hard.
Itâs called the middle of the day, because itâs in the middle of the day. Before it thereâs an equal amount of light as after it. Youre honestly going to stand here arguing that high-noon being in the middle of a DAY is arbitrary, without smelling a hint of irony?
Take a thing. Divide it exactly in half. Can you cut at an arbitrary point to make that happen� Or is there like a thing where if you choose the exact point in the middle of that thing (like, an exact point, not an arbitrary one), then you get two halves which are exactly the same size?
Youâre clearly upset and projecting. Is English your first language? Itâs honestly amazing how often I end up correcting Americans on how to use English.
You didnât understand the point. I was talking about Romans. Happy desperate googling, mr angry-like-a-wet-cat!
You saying a thing doesnât make it so. For instance I could say that literally every word you said was arbitrary. It doesnât make it so, does it? Also, trying to use prescriptivism shows just how lacking you are in your linguistics conversational.
Me purposefully not replying to each of your childish retorts wouldnât help anything. Youâre just wrong but youâll never be able to accept it. Youâll equivocate, possibly for weeks even.
I donât have any proposal at all, and until you get that into your head, I just donât see how you can possibly have enough of a basis to even continue this conversation intelligently.
Citation needed.
I. Donât. Have. A. System.
Bro, other languages exist. If you woke up after drinking for days, itâs entirely likely that you wonât be able to read the words on the sign and know whether itâs a restaurant or a nursing home or a gambling parlor.
That thereâs what we call a tautology.
Nope. But you still arenât actually dealing with the reality that Iâm not saying the word ânoonâ is arbitrary, Iâm saying that the numbers weâve assigned to it are. Remember, in the twelve hour clock, noon happens at the end of one set of numbers and at the beginning of the other set. In some timekeeping systems itâs even weirder. Other choices could and have been made, and are even still in use.
Iâm begging you. Give some indication that you are at all literate here.
Not sure what youâre talking about. Iâm having a great time watching you make a fool of yourself and froth at the mouth about how intelligent you are. Itâs hilarious.
Aw, sorry, I already noted that youâre angry. You canât âno uâ that one back at me. Iâm deducting five indignation points.
âŠeh? Iâm very clearly not being prescriptivist, since Iâm the one taking about how the word has been used differently through time.
Are you feeding my posts to ChatGPT and asking for responses?
Ah, classic. âI donât have an actual argument, so Iâll pretend like making one is beneath me and hope the other person makes it for meâŠâ
ââŠand then Iâll preemptively lay the table for me to exit the conversation with righteous indignation when Iâve used up all of my insults or gotten bored.â Love it. Well done.
You donât understand what the word âarbitraryâ means, lol.
I havenât laughed this hard in weeks.
With your imagined system of âif everyone had always lived with random ass times they would feel as normal as they do nowâ.
No, they wouldnât, because unlike your ignorant-ass thinks, they arenât arbitrary. You donât understand the basic history of timekeeping and you have an utterly childish point, which is also wrong. Yes I know youâre not directly proposing the use of another system, implications exist. Youâre just backing up on everything youâve said after I rub your face in how stupid itâs been, then you pretend you donât have a face full of poo.
Itâs ridiculous.
I speak 2 languages on a native level, one or two more fluently and a half a dozen in a âI could order in a restaurantâ level. Iâm pretty sure I know more expressions about time in more languages than you. How many languages do you speak?
This is why I keep replying. Youâre hilariously ironic. Remember you insisting how ânumbers are inherently meaninglessâ? Scripts and languages change, sure, but most of the world uses Arabic numerals. :D It doesnât matter if you donât know the local language or âwhat time local noon isâ or even if theyâre using the same alphabet, youâll still recognise a number like 14:00 - 03:00 and then look up at the sky and itâs not yet noon and youâll know youâll have to wait several hours at least.
With as with an actually arbitrary system you might see numbers like 0748-5531 and have no fucking idea if itâs even a time or even if it is a time, what time itâs referring to, even if you know itâs exactly midday.
But youâll not admit that laughable. Which in itself amuses me.
No shit, thatâs why Iâm laughing at you. Youâre pretending like ânoonâ means nine because of its etymology, as in youâre pretending as if you understand linguistics, when you donât understand that ignoring itâs actual descriptive meaning of âmid-dayâ (which is why itâs "high noon, because thatâs describing the position of the sun) is something even a first year linguist would never do. Hell, even if you had just read the basic wiki entry youâd know how ridiculous that is. But youâre not about learning, youâre about pretending you know things.
And Iâm saying you are wrong in that. Because you are. You are wrong in saying that. Do you understand? You are incorrect. It is not arbitrary. Even the number 12 isnât arbitrary, neither is 24 or 100. Thatâs not what the word means, sweetums. <3
Yes, Iâm perfectly aware. Watching you prance around pretending to be smart is like watching toddlers bake mud cakes. Itâs cute how they think theyâre doing a credible job and you just have to act along so they can enjoy themselves. :)
Honestly youâre literally making my sides hurt
Oh Iâm not going anywhere, hunny. Youâre better entertainment than this show Iâm watching.
Well, if you said it, it must be true.
So wait, is this a pivot, or are you still trying to claim that Iâm advocating for this? I have completely lost track of what youâre framing your abusive posts on now.
Anyway, your imagined system of âsomehow the fact that the time when people wake up is called 0600 is inherent to our biology or orbital dynamics or whateverâ is absolutely not more logical than the system that the OP has asked about. Itâs just as arbitrary (hey, yeah, look, I still know what that means!).
Once again proving that you havenât read the previous posts Iâve made. Come on, dude. Simple reading. Thatâs all Iâm asking for.
You have yet to actually prove this. Made lots of assertions, but youâre just screaming ânuh-uh! YOU are!â over and over at this point and then spiking the conversational football as if it does anything.
Finally discovering what I was actually saying because you actually decided to go back and read it this time doesnât count as âbacking up.â Iâve been saying the same thing this whole time.
âŠcongratulations? Iâm not sure how thatâs relevant in any way to anything. If itâs really important to you: youâre very smart and special. I bet you make your parents proud.
Maybe. Or youâll walk up to the door of a veterinarian and wait around for five hours before you realize that people are bringing animals into the place, not walking out with food. Thereâs also the problem of not knowing whether itâs before noon or after noon (so a sign that says theyâre open for lunch from 1000-1800 would be useless if the sun is in a position where it could easily be 0700 or 1900). Or not being able to see the sun due to clouds or night or being inside. What Iâm saying is that there are bigger problems involved in the situation you brought up, which is why I doubt anyone would care to solve the time problem. In this fictional, made-up world where the history of timekeeping went a little bit differently. Which youâve somehow decided merits insulting me, despite you not actually having an argument that makes any logical sense. (Or at least not one youâre willing to share with the class)
I admit itâs absolutely laughable! You know what else is absolutely laughable? The idea that the current system makes any more sense! If youâre trying to coordinate an event with someone just a few miles away but across a time zone boundary in our current system, you have to go to great pains to sort everything out and make sure nobody arrives an hour early or an hour late. Or, even worse, two hours early (which happened once to a friend of mine when he did the time zone math backwards). Despite being just miles apart, and not being able to see any appreciable visible difference between the sun. Thatâs laughable, too.
âOh, but we have tools to deal with itâ or âoh, but we can figure it outâ or âoh, git gud, noobââand yeah, weâre used to it because we grew up with it and our parents grew up with it and our teachers grew up with it for generations and generations. If it had gone the other way, we wouldâve developed different tools to deal with it, different ways of figuring it out, and we wouldâve gotten good at other ways of keeping time. Thatâs literally my entire point.
All of this is laughable. Itâs all arbitrary (yep, still got it) and hilarious because we made it all up. All models are wrong (including timekeeping). Some are useful.
Your refusal to read in favor of just assuming what I mean is showing again.
Aw, buddy. You think youâre teaching me anything? If you had anything to teach me, that would be a welcome change. I love learning things. But you seem to be in âdunk modeâ and absolutely furious that I keep refusing to let you dunk on me.
You seriously think that assigning 12 to ânoonâ is inherent, babycakes? You literally believe that thereâs no other way that we couldâve matched up numbers to the time of day, pumpkin? Like thereâs not other ways of keeping time that used different numbers or even words instead of the digits youâre familiar with on the clocks you own, honeybunch?
We agreed on 1200 as noon. Thatâs why it works, and thatâs the only reason it works. If we had decided that noon would be 0000 or 1800 or âthe sixth hourâ or whatever, youâd be screaming your pretty little head off that Iâm ridiculous for suggesting that 1200 makes as much sense as anything else. The decision has historical precedent, but itâs scientifically arbitrary (boom, still know that word). The planet doesnât care whether we call it 1200 or d3:12:1h::23 or Xylophone, itâll still rotate to put us under the sun at that time.
Having been a parent of a toddler, I can tell you itâs definitely nothing like that. For one thing, toddlers baking mud cakes is adorable, and I definitely am not adorable.
Iâm so happy to be of service, sweetie-pie. You have a great day now, 'k?
Itâs true, because itâs true. You saying something is âarbitraryâ because you donât understand the reason is very stupid indeed. Really American, I might say.
You talk about non-sequiturs (again like a teenager horny to pretend to be a philosopher who actually doesnât know jack shit), while arguing about age. Itâs hilarious.
You still donât know what âarbitraryâ means. 12, 24, 30, even 100 hour systems are in no way arbitrary.
You donât understand what âimplicationâ means either.
Damn, I could be having this conversation in several other languages, but I presume this is your âbestâ and all you manage is to whinge about how your mudcakes are actual food and stomp your food and cry on the ground until I pretend to eat one to make you happy.
No you havenât âread a book about timekeepingâ, youâre just a kiddo American feeling mighty stupid that someone is mocking them.
Like I told you, Iâll eventually tell you the answers, even though theyâre pretty damn obvious for people who have actually read books about timekeeping. I mean roflmao why the fuck would you think of such a childish lie? This is why America is ridiculed. Your president being what it is has given you a false sense of how much regulate people can get away with asinine bullshitting.
You brought up language skills, and now try to make it seem like you didnât think it important anyway. Seriously, I canât think of a more childish way of going about that.
Remember how you didnât notice anything about the divisibility of hours? Why are there no systems based on a prime number of hours, huh?
Oh Iâve read your posts. Iâm just gonna keep you publicly shaming yourself so the bots have time to archive your stupidity for the rest of the world before you delete in all in an attack of shame when I finally do educate you
Surely youâre not this fucking stupid. You just canât be.
âHey is it day or night out?â
âUh, I canât tell, itâs so cloudyâ
âOh no, Iâm inside, I have no way of knowing where the sun is, because all our buildings are shipping crates with no windowsâ
âOh no, itâs night, and all the markers in the sky are clearly visible, what to do now?â
You âread a book about timekeepingâ recentlyâŠ?
I am not and have not argued you at any point. You are my entertainment. Just like I wouldnât fight a kid, I wonât argue you.
Youâre still grossly misusing âarbitraryâ. I understand youâre linguistically challenged so here:
A tautology isnât a reason, itâs a logical fallacy. Maybe even a religion. This would be a really weird religion to have a holy war over.
As opposed to just insisting that something isnât because you donât know the reason, like you seem to be doing? Prove me wrong. Provide any evidence. Or honestly even just a claim, a claim would at least be something worth discussing.
Well, youâre not wrong there.
So they came from the universe factory with those meanings already imbued in them?
Come on, man. Make a claim. Even make a bogus claim. But donât just attack me for the fact that you donât understand my language.
Do I? Youâre the one thatâs been slinging insults since the moment you showed up, and âpretending to eat oneâ would mean telling me what you think is right instead of trying to verbally abuse me until I admit that you were right, even though you havenât actually said anything that could be right or wrong yet.
Honestly now Iâm wondering if it was a video series. I donât see it in my reading log anywhere. But it was a long time ago, so maybe it was before I started logging books.
Youâre not âmockingâ me. Youâre shouting random nonsense from the opposing sidewalk and hoping that some of it makes sense.
Press X to doubt.
Then it should be pretty easy to point me toward one of these books, shouldnât it?
There are a lot of reasons why America is ridiculed, and most of them are justified.
Pretty sure I never said anything about the number of languages one speaks being important.
Citation needed.
Wow, you really donât know me.
âHey, when does this restaurant open?â
âThe sign says 11:00, but I donât know what time it is. Or what day it is; it opens at 16:00 on Saturdays and not at all on Tuesdays.â
âWell, I see by the sun that itâs either a couple of hours before or after noon, or weâre at an extreme edge of the time zone and itâs exactly noon. So I guess rather than trying to find someone to ask or a restaurant thatâs clearly open, we should just wait in front of this door for an indeterminate amount of time.â
If I said ârecently,â I misspoke. It was a long time ago.
This is literally what youâre doing now. The first definition of âargumentâ is âan exchange of diverging or opposite views, typically a heated or angry one.â I have a diverging view from you, apparently (even though you wonât actually tell me what it is), and youâre super heated about it for some reason.
Based on the definition that you provided, Iâm using it perfectly:
The choice to divide the day into twelve hours was based on the personal whim of the ancient Egyptians. They found a particular set of twelve constellations to be important, but by random choice they might well have found a different set of, say, eight constellations to be important. Or sixteen. Or ten.
The choice to begin the day (and thus the numbering of the day) twelve hours before noon was based on the personal whim of the Romans. Maybe they liked some aspects of the choice better than starting the day six hours before noon like Jewish rabbis did, or at noon itself. They may have justified it with a good reason, but the people who chose otherwise would have justified their choice with a good reason as well; so for humanity as a whole, it is arbitrary.
The choice to mark out time zones within which all hours are indexed to the local noon was also made on the personal whim ofâŠsome railroad guy (I canât remember his name) in the 19th century. He knew that the then-current system of every railway having their own time and every city along the railroad having a different local time was a bad idea (it was), but he could just as easily have chosen a UTC and suggested that the trains run on a truly universal UTC. Would it have caught on? Who knows? But weâre presuming for the sake of this discussion a world in which it did.
A tautology isnât a reason. A reason is a reason. Just like how arbitrary things are arbitrary and how numbers have inherent value.
Youâve made several claims. Then when I point out the moronic bullshit youâve said you equivocate, despite having a room-temp IQ and everyone seeing how wrong you are. Itâs hilarious.
Yes, youâre ânow wondering if it was a video seriesâ. Sure you are. As if you didnât know that you donât read books. Youâre not only stupid as fuck, youâre also the worst liar Iâve seen in years.
One of the reasons Americans are mocked is because they try claiming things which everyone can see are incorrect.
Like I said, itâs like watching an excited toddler playing kitchen.
No, you didnât âmisspeakâ, youâre just a very shitty liar.
Having a hard time understanding this sentence?
I speak a dozen languages, but you donât even speak one, so the communication issue isnât due to a lack of MY ability. ;>
Youâre wrong and a moron. Several times over. Run and cry I donât care, it wonât change the facts.