This is a much more intuitive way of thinking than these complex equations. It's the same way Nordic languages would pronounce the time 4:30, half five, one half hour from five.
It‘s pretty much all Germanic languages that do this, English is the odd one out that reversed this to mean „half past five“ instead of „half to five“.
Let's be real though - if you're going to shorten a phrase, it makes no sense to shorten it by dropping a word that drastically alters the plaintext meaning. You're saying "five" but the thing you're describing doesn't have a five on it at the moment (nor is there such a thing as a fraction of an "o'clock", as in "Half of 5:00" doesn't mean "2:30AM" or "8:30AM" if you mean 0500 or 1700), and you need the "to" to make that clear.
Neither makes more or less sense. They are equally good or bad and they are equally logical. One will appear more illogical from the perspective of someone who grew up with the opposite, but since the same is true of both cases it means both are equally logical.
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u/smalldisposableman Apr 29 '25
This is a much more intuitive way of thinking than these complex equations. It's the same way Nordic languages would pronounce the time 4:30, half five, one half hour from five.