Do you know why we say o’clock for the hour when telling
time? Why do we say, “it is 7
o’clock?” I was asked this in an ESL
class and I had no idea. When I got home
I had to look this up, and I learned a few things about time.
At one time people didn’t have clocks. We told time by sundials or by guessing with
shadows. Some cultures built giant
obelisks that worked as community sundials.
Other communities had a Noon Cannon, a cannon that fired every day at
noon, allowing all that could hear it to be on the same time, at least for a
while. Churches rang bells telling the
hour and the half hour. I lived near a
church that rang the hour and it drove me crazy. The bells were loud, and rang for each
hour. I especially hated hearing it at 7
or 8 o’clock. Luckily it stopped before
dark and didn’t start until the workday started. The Latin word for bell is clocca, and this
is where the word for the clock came from.
Once clocks were in use, it was a habit to answer the question of what
time is it in a way to make it clear the time came from a clock and not a
sundial or guess or obelisk. The answer
was to say, “It is 7 of the clock.” We
have of course shortened that to 7 o’clock.
I learned that there were many ingenious ways to tell time
before clocks besides the sundials and shadows.
Hour glasses and water clocks helped measure the passing of time, but
they were really more like timers than actual clocks. An incense clock was used with different
smells designating the passing of time.
I wonder what it was
like when we didn’t have watches counting down the day. We couldn’t stare at a watch or clock and see
the minutes passing, causing panic and worry that we were not getting enough
done. When meetings were arranged people managed to get together but with more
patience, as the precise time was unknown.
Perhaps one person pointed to the sky and said, “We will meet tomorrow
when the sun is here.” Both individuals
could make the meeting and no one was upset if the first person was later than
the other. It is good to know the time,
to carry our watches or smart phones around and to be on time for work and
meetings, but I feel like life was easier and passed slower when we were not so
consumed with exactness.
OF course there are times when we need complete exactness in
time measurement. When the United States
was first covered with train tracks the railroad companies needed all
communities to be together in their times.
Each town and community kept their own time measurement, so while it
might be 12 noon in one town it might be 12:05 in the next town over, changing especially
as the trains moved east or west. Many
tracks carried trains both ways, and keeping to a schedule would be
important. The USA converted to standard
time with our time zones when railroad company presidents gathered to solve
this problem. They developed four
standard time zones across the country on a day called the Day of Two Noons on
November 18th 1883. I find this very interesting that our time zones
were not created by politicians or our leaders but by the railroad
companies. They were created by the
business that needed them to be created, and the entire country began using
them.
So, I am enjoying learning the history of time, and I hope
this was interesting to you as well. So
many interesting things learned from one simple question.
Have a great day!
