Half and quarter hours

[Astro Pen]

Anyone know why we go "Half an hour" but "Quarter of an hour" ?

 

[farntfar]

Hmm! Tricky one.
But it seems to be true of bananas as well. (or a bricks or a sixpences etc)
You could say "half a banana" but not "quarter a banana". (unless quarter is a verb.)

On a side note when asked what time it was, my grandfather used to say such things as "It's five and twenty past three", which I alwaays found rather odd. It definitely seemed to be a generation thing. (ie people born before world war 1)

 

[HareBrain]

I doubt anyone does, for sure. My guess would be that "half of", with the "F" and "V" sounds so close together, was just too clunky, so the "of" got dropped.

 

[.matthew.]

I doubt anyone does, for sure. My guess would be that "half of", with the "F" and "V" sounds so close together, was just too clunky, so the "of" got dropped.

The same would also apply to adding the of to a quarter, otherwise, you'd get quartERA banana

 

[Valtharius]

Speculative answer: We regularly refer to multiple quarters or thirds or other fractions. But we rarely speak of multiple halves of something. So we subconsciously process half as an adjective not a noun. Hence it needs no article.

 

[tinkerdan]

I know it seems barbaric; but I'd use quarter-hour and half-hour and have done with it all. Those others seem rather convoluted and passive.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I know it seems barbaric; but I'd use quarter-hour and half-hour and have done with it all. Those others seem rather convoluted and passive.

Yes, I think I use that way when I’m speaking, as a kind of lazy shorthand, but there’s something very British about the wordiness of the correct way.

I recall reading Stephen King in my childhood and having to find out what ‘a quarter of one’ meant. It sounded to alien to me.

 

[Wayne Mack]

I feel the two constructs may be subtly different. To me, 'I ate half a sandwich' is not the same as 'I ate half of a sandwich.' The first sounds like I only had a half to eat, while the second sounds as if I was interrupted while eating.

 

[The Judge]

I suspect it's to do with the rhythm of the expressions -- most of us have an innate sense of what "feels" right with stress and metre -- coupled with ease of use/euphony, as HB notes.

I was thinking of this in connection with pre-decimal coinage. The coin that represented 2s 6d was known as a half crown** but in ordinary speech it was always half-a-crown** which I'm sure must be because that flows better when spoken. But had there been a coin for 1s 3d I can't believe people would have called it a quarter-a-crown, far less a quarter-of-a-crown, because they're both too lumpy as expressions to be used quickly and naturally -- instead it would have been a quarter-crown.



** for the young or non-Brits, 5 shillings (one-fourth of a pound) was known as a crown, as its origins lay in an Henrician coin which had a crown device on its obverse

*** OK, it was also called half-a-dollar, which I'd thought came from a time in the very dim and distant past when £1 was equivalent to US$4, but it might actually be older than that, since before the Union of the Crowns (ie the monarchy, not the coins) there was a Scottish dollar of the same value as a crown

 

[Danny McG]

I feel the two constructs may be subtly different. To me, 'I ate half a sandwich' is not the same as 'I ate half of a sandwich.' The first sounds like I only had a half to eat, while the second sounds as if I was interrupted while eating.

Stop messing about and just eat the full sarnie

 

[Pyan]

Especially if it's made with jam, eh, Danny?