Correcting Mr. Simon’s misconceptions in his advice to the media

Jun 08, 2008 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Mr. Treon C. Simon is only partially correct when he castigates our media for reporting policemen/officers as ranks (Guyana Chronicle letter: “Lack of knowledge?” June 6, 2008).
He mentions the correct usage of the word in one context, but there is another usage in another context: “members of the armed forces who are not officers, or the ordinary members or personnel of any organisation who do not hold high office” (Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2005).

Those who are not officers can properly be called ranks.
Furthermore, his contention that it is incorrect to use the 24-hour clock to announce time is wrong, but I think understandable. The 24-hour clock is a convention of time-keeping in which the day runs from midnight to midnight and is divided into 24 hours, numbered from 0 to 23.

This system is the most commonly used time notation in the world today. The 12-hour clock is dominant in a handful of countries, particularly the United States and Canada (except Quebec). Twenty-four-hour notation in the US and Canada is also popularly referred to as military time, or astronomical time.

It is also the international standard notation of time. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-hour_clock). I think Mr. Simon is confused by the military use of the 24-hour clock based on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). For most daily things, the military use local time as a reference. In other words, “report to duty at 0700,” would mean you have to be at work at 7:00 a.m., local time.

“The Commander wants to see you at 1500 hrs,” means you need to be in the Commander’s office at 3:00 p.m., local time. When it comes to operational matters (such as communications, training exercises, deployments, ship movements, aircraft flights, etc.), the military must often coordinate with bases and personnel located in other time zones.

To avoid confusion in these matters, the military uses the time in Greenwich, England, (GMT). The U.S. Military refers to this time zone as Zulu Time, and they attach the “Zulu” (Z) suffix, to ensure the time-zone referred to is clear. For example, a military message or communication might state, “The ship will cross into the area of operations at 1300Z.” The ship would arrive in the area when it is 1:00 p.m., in Greenwich. (http://usmilitary.about.com/od/theorderlyroom/a/militarytime.htm).
Of course, it is technically incorrect to say, “Fifteen hundred hours” and “Fifteen hundred thirty hours.” Rather, one should simply say, “Fifteen hours” and “Fifteen-thirty hours.” There is no need to say ‘hundred,’ as this implies a duration of time, not clock time. But that’s just hairsplitting.
Finally, Mr. Simon is condescending in his advice to us: “to speak and write properly and do not print broken English for the World to see.” (Shouldn’t it be the lower-case ‘w’ for world?)
A few years ago, I was engaged in a long-running debate in the letters columns on the use of non-standardized English (The term ‘broken English’ has been dumped in the dustbin of the history of linguistics).

I showed that Americans use non-standardized language in their media: tell ya, ain’t, gonna, wanna, enthused. Linguists know that the rules that govern non-standardized English are just as complex as those for Standard English. It is just that the spelling of the former has not been standardized.
I wanna tell ya this, Mr. Simon, and I ain’t gonna tell ya again: I ain’t enthused about your advice. Translation: Me want tell you dis, Mr. Simon, and me nah gun tell you again: Me nah enthusiastic ‘bout yuh advice.
M. Xiu Quan-Balgobind-Hackett

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