Abstract
The Dutch method of reading the clock differs strikingly from the English. The principal reason for this is the fact that the half hour is treated as just as important a point in time as the hour itself: whereas in English the minutes are reckoned with relation to the hour, in Dutch they are reckoned with relation to both the hour and the half hour. An interesting concrete example of this habit is the fact that in the Netherlands the clocks in churches and town halls strike the hour, e.g. 5, both at the half-hour (4:30) and at the hour (5:00).
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© 1984 Uitgeverij Martinus Nijhoff b.v.
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Shetter, W.Z. (1984). Telling time. In: A Practical Grammar Introduction to Dutch. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-6448-1_27
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-6448-1_27
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-247-9978-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-6448-1
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