When somebody asks you for the time and you just... freeze

I suspect there's a major divide between "grew up with analogue watches" and "grew up with modern technology."  

If you grow up looking at, you know, clocks and watch dials, it becomes second nature.  It's like growing up in the U.S., if you asked me how long a foot is, I could hold up my hands and immediately show you roughly 12-inches of length.  However,  if you asked me, "How long is a decimeter?" I'd have to do some calculations in my head, and then say to myself, "Hmmm...  a meter is slightly more than 3 feet, which is 36 inches, and a decimeter is 1/10th of that, so a decimeter has got to be ~4 inches or so."  And, only then hold my hands apart to show ~4 inches.  Whereas, I imagine, a European would immediately and simply hold up their hands to show the length of a decimeter.

I suspect it's the same if you grew up with digital displays and modern technology.  You look at a watch dial, and you've got to use explicit reasoning to figure out what the time is.  

Certainly.  I remember growing up, we'd have questions on math tests related to reading analogue watches, of course under the assumption that none of us would know how.  Of course when I glance at a watch, I know what time it is, but I don't have a number pop into my head.  I just don't need to immediately determine whether it's 3:26 or 3:27, in the same way I don't read a tach in a car like "oh the engine is at 3,750 rpm."

When someone asks me what time it is I usually take a quick glance and say "it's about 10 past" or it's almost 20 of" all without breaking stride. Sometimes I just say "time to buy a watch".

I was social distancing long before it was called social distancing.

This is hilarious 🤣

Seriously though i think for us watch guys, we just round it up to "about" quarter to, 10 past, half past.... 

If you ask someone the time, I think you can sometimes tell if they were looking at an analog or digital watch based on their response.

When reading a digital watch, most people tend to say the time exactly as shown, but when using an analog display, people tend to use words like "after", "to", "almost" and "just past".

For example, with the photo in the post, I'd read the time as "about 20 to 10" rather than 9:40.

@foghorn @NeatlydoneZ @tempus You're each right on the money methinks.  Once again to @Omeganut 's point as well, it was consistently strange to me growing up to hear adults use "quarter till" esque terminology, because again... digital clocks everywhere.  Even more confusing, as I take French 101 for the third consecutive time at Uni, is the idea of  3:32 being "Il est quatre heures à l'apres-midi moins vingt-huit" (it's four hours in the afternoon minus twenty eight minutes).  Like it makes sense, it's helpful to know I have 28 minutes until the hour, when my "thing" is likely to happen, but for the love of God are the French really staring down at their Yemas and jumping through four hoops of mental gymnastics just for someone else's convenience?  Doesn't sound very French.  Of course nowadays, a conventional response, in 24 hour time at that, is more likely to be "it's 15:32."

The time remains rather short of the one thing we can all agree upon...

I might be wrong but I live in Europe and I've never heard anyone refer to a decimeter. That would be 10 centimeters. 

Ha!  You got me!  I have no idea how Europeans talk!

I liked that though. Did give me a chuckle 😂. I mean I like the fact that an American had a go with the metric system so A+ 👍🏻