Canadians telling time: A study in Dialect Topography *
Chia-Yi Tony Pi
University of Toronto
This paper investigates linguistic variation in methods of telling time in four dialects of Canadian
English. It is hypothesized that the invention of the liquid crystal display (LCD) for use in
chronometry has led to the digital variant of time-telling (e.g., eleven-forty) gaining currency over
analog time-telling (e.g., twenty to twelve). Real time data from previous of Canadian and U.S.
surveys are compared with data from four Dialect Topography project regions (Montréal, Québec
City, Golden Horseshoe, Ottawa Valley). It is shown that the change from analog to digital for
(9:30) precedes that of (11:40), indicating a non-simultaneous two-stage transition. Evidence
from historical facts and a novel methodology using dual responses (the interaction matrix) is
used to support this claim. it is also demonstrated that (11:40) exhibits a divergence between the
Québec and Ontario dialects, where the digital form appears to be gaining currency in Québec.
Finally, I discuss methods for extending this analysis to other variables and languages.
The telling of accurate time is a necessity in everyday life, more so in modern
times than in the past. Advancements in chronometry allow for time to be measured
more and more accurately. Yet, there are different ways to tell time. Some of these
linguistic variations may be traced to historical innovations in timekeeping. For example,
the invention of the minute hand to the clock dial in 1577 permitted greater accuracy, but
also led to the increase of dial divisions from twelve to sixty to accommodate that
precision; language likewise changed to be able to express this precision.
In this paper, I investigate the impact of a recent innovation on the English
language: the liquid crystal display (LCD). Invented in the early seventies, the LCD is
used for digital time displays, and has found widespread use in digital watches, clocks,
and computing. Since time-telling may be divided broadly into two variants, analog or
digital, one expects that the digital variant would gain in currency, paralleling the rise in
use of that invention.
Both the digital and analog variants were used to tell time before the invention of
the digital display. The digital variant consists all representations wherein the hour
precedes the minutes, e.g., eleven-forty, nine-thirty, nine hours and twenty minutes,
fifteen hundred forty hours. The analog variant includes all subvarieties where the hour
follows the minutes (or an hour-fraction), e.g., twenty to twelve, quarter after twelve,
quarter of twelve, half past twelve, half twelve.
To test the hypothesis, I examine two questions on the Dialect Topography survey
(Chambers 1994) which pertain to time. Q18 shows the clockface for (11:40), and Q49,
(9:30).1
*
The four Dialect Topography projects are supported by grants to Prof. Jack Chambers from the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I am indebted to Jack Chambers for rekindling my
interest in dialectology, and his Research Assistants Gord Easson, Mary MacKeracher, and Jacek Panster
for their invaluable time and assistance. A version of this paper was presented at NWAV 29 in East
Lansing, Michigan. I would also like to thank the NWAV participants and the Y2K Dialect Topography
class at the University of Toronto for their input. The Dialect Topography website may be found at
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~chambers/dialect_topography.html.
Chia-Yi Tony Pi
81
Q18
•
12
•
•
What time is it?
(Please write in words what you would say.)
•
9
3
•
•
•
_____________________________________
•
6
Q49
•
What time is it?
(Please write in words what you would say.)
12
•
•
•
9
3
•
_____________________________________
•
•
6
•
Four regions of Central Canada from the Dialect Topography project (Golden
Horseshoe and Ottawa Valley in Ontario, and Montréal and Québec City in Québec) are
compared, and contrasted with two regions in New York State. Further real-time
evidence is taken from previous Canadian and U.S. surveys to support the findings.
This paper is divided into four sections. In section 1, I present the historical
development of modern timekeeping devices. Next, I summarize the findings of previous
studies on telling time in section 2. In section 3, I introduce the Dialect Topography
project and discuss the major results. I hypothesize in this section that two waves of
technological advancement and their impact on telling time can be identified, and I
develop an interaction matrix method using dual responses (i.e., when two variants are
given by the respondent for the same variable) to check the results. I also investigate
(9:30) and (11:40) in more depth. Finally, I suggest possible avenues for further research
into time-telling.
1.
A Historical Perspective on Telling Time2
Twenty-four hours a day, sixty minutes to an hour, and sixty-seconds a minute:
this familiar system of telling time has its roots in antiquity, as early as the eighth century
A.D. by the Venerable Adam Bede in two of his works. The monk may have based his
1
As the instructions ask the respondent to answer each question as it comes, the respondents are assumed to
have answered Q18 before Q49. An analog clockface was used instead of a digital display, since it seems
likely that the digital display would prompt a digital response.
2
This chronology was compiled from information from the following sources: Edwards (1997), Anderson
(1998), Cutmore (1999), Grenon (1999), Waugh (1999).
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Toronto Working Papers In Linguistics
proposal on Sumerian and Egyptian numbering schemes.3 By the late eighth century, the
Church had quietly adopted Bede's twenty-four hour system, not by edict but by general
consensus.
The Sumerians had used a base-60 number system for reasons either practical or
religious, or both. Likely, Bede recognized the usefulness of the number sixty: it is the
smallest number divisible by all of the first six cardinal numbers (from one to six), and is
perfect for subdividing a circle into equal segments.
The Egyptian priests had divided the day and night each into twelve parts, giving
rise to the twenty-four sections of the sun-cycle; the twelve-point division was later
adopted by the Romans for sundials. When the first clocks were invented in the early
fourteenth century, the clock dial was divided into twelve instead of sixty following the
Roman sundials; there was no need at the time for more precise measurements. Clocks of
that era had only an hour hand; thus in practice, it was the twelve-part division which
proved more useful for the first clocks. References made of timespans shorter than an
hour were based on halves, thirds and quarters of the hour, rarely to minutes.
It was not until the early-sixteenth century that portable time-keeping devices
were invented. The first watch (the Nuremberg Egg) was ball-shaped and had only the
hour hand to tell the time. Watches became more popular later in the sixteenth century.
In 1577, the minute hand was invented by Jost Burgi for astronomer Tycho Brahe
(originally to cope the greater accuracy needed in astronomy); since its invention, time
could be told to within several minutes of accuracy. Consequently, the sixty-minute
division became useful and was popularized.
As technology advanced and mass production became available, watches became
more affordable. In America, watches were first produced in 1850 and were so essential
for timekeeping in the railroad industry that they were commonly known as ‘railroad
watches’ in the late nineteenth century. Time zones were invented this century as well by
Sir Sanford Fleming, a Canadian, to make it possible for watches to be set according to a
global standard. During the First World War, the advantages of the wristwatch over the
pocket watch became evident, and over the next decade wristwatches became much more
popular than pocket watches by a ratio of 30:1.
The digital revolution began in 1970, when he first electronic digital watch was
released. The original red light emitting diode (LED) technology was soon replaced by
the liquid crystal display (LCD) in 1972. Digital displays of time became quite popular,
used wherever accurate timekeeping is required: stopwatches; basketball shot clocks;
alarm clocks; computer time displays. However, digital displays have not totally
replaced analog dials; in recent years, there has been a consumer backlash against digital
watches. Currently, both technologies and methods of telling time co-exist in modern
society. The analog watch has the advantage of style, whereas the digital watch measures
time more accurately and is more versatile for setting alarms and other functions. Today,
there are many analog and hybrid analog-digital watches. Despite this change in fashion,
digital displays remain integral to many aspects of modern society, due to their usefulness
in displaying alphanumeric information as well as time.
3
Bede’s two works were De temporibus ("On Times", 703 A.D.) and De temporum ratione ("On the
Reckoning of Time", 725 A.D.).
Chia-Yi Tony Pi
2.
83
Linguistic Perspectives on Telling Time
There have been numerous surveys in the past that elicited data on how people tell
time. The information is grouped into two subsections, which I call (nn:30), the halfhour variable, and (nn:45), the three-quarter hour variable.4 Below, I summarize findings
from the following works: Harold B. Allen’s Linguistic Atlas of the Upper Midwest
(LAUM, 1949-53), which covered Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South
Dakota; Scargill and Warkentyne’s The Survey of Canadian English: A Report (1952),
which covered all ten Canadian provinces; The Dictionary of American Regional English
(DARE, 1964-70); William Kretzmar, Jr.’s Linguistic Atlas of Middle and South Atlantic
States (LAMSAS, 1933-1974), which covered New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Viriginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
and northern Florida.
2.1
(nn:30): The Half-Hour Variable
The variable (nn:30) may be expressed digitally as (nine)-thirty, or in an analog
fashion as the variants half after (nine), half (nine), and half past (nine).
Of the half after form, DARE notes that it used to be more prevalent, common in
northeastern New England but regarded as old-fashioned. The LAMSAS data showed
that half after was mainly found south of Pennsylvania, with a few speakers in New York
who also used that variant.
The variant half (nine) has very little currency today in North America. This
variant was once more widespread, but is now found mostly in German settlement areas,
where the form retains currency due to its similarity to the German form halb neun.
Half past was the most widespread of the three analog variants. The LAMSAS
database showed that half past was found uniformly throughout all its regions. In
LAUM, it was noted that the half past form was almost unanimously preferred over half
after. However, in the face of competition from the compound -thirty variant, half past
was itself declining in popularity.
LAMSAS found that only respondents in the Georgia, South Carolina, and
northern New York used x-thirty. In LAUM, more than one-fourths of the respondents
used both the half past and -thirty forms.5 Allen attributed this decline of half past to the
demands of “numerous aspects of contemporary technological society,” for which the
digital variant was better suited. Respondents commented that the -thirty form was
“shorter”, that “railroads have changed people’s ways of telling time.” This tendency
4
On notation: (nn:30) refers to the variable for the half-hour; (nn:45) and (nn:40) for the variables for
quarter to the hour and twenty minutes to the hour respectively. Specifically, 11:40 and 9:30 are the
variables tested by the Dialect Topography survey. When the time is written out (e.g., eleven-forty, ninethirty, twenty to twelve), it represents a variant rather than the variable. The hour may vary, but a random
hour is sometimes placed in parentheses to make the text easier to read, like (nine)-thirty or quarter to
(nine).
5
In these surveys, the primary goal of the fieldworkers was to elicit the prepositional variants used;
although the digital variants (both -thirty and -forty-five) were sometimes supplied by the informant,
whether these forms were included was left to the choice of individual fieldworkers. As a result, the
sampling of the digital data was not as reliable as the analog variants.
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Toronto Working Papers In Linguistics
towards the digital form by railroad workers correlated with their needs, since precise
timekeeping was critical to their occupation. The table below summarizes the percentage
of respondents who supplied the half-past and -thirty forms:
Table 1 - Percentage of respondents by age/education in the Upper Midwest for nn:30
(LAUM II, 1949-53, p.69); Type I (oldest, 8th grade education), Type II (ages 50-60,
high school education), Type III (youngest, college or university education).
half past
-thirty
2.2
TYPE I
TYPE II
TYPE III
AVERAGE
76%
51%
67%
58%
62%
62%
71%
55%
(nn:45): The Three-Quarter Hour Variable
(nn:45) has more variants than (nn:30): the digital (eleven)-forty-five and the
analog variants quarter to (eleven); quarter of (eleven); quarter till (eleven); and quarter
before (eleven). The major analog variants were associated with geographical regions, as
discussed below.
Quarter to is associated with British English. In North America, the quarter to
form is considered predominantly Northern, found in New England and Canada.
LAMSAS showed that quarter to was found mainly along the East Coast, as well as
throughout New York State. In Scargill and Warkentyne (1972), all Canadian provinces
show a preference for the to form. Table 2 shows the distribution of the analog forms in
Ontario, Québec, and the average for the provinces:
Table 2 - Percentage use of analog variants in Ontario, Québec, and averages of all ten
provinces (Scargill and Warkentyne 1972, p.76)
Ontario
of before to
male parents
1
0
97
female parents
1
0
98
male students
2
5
92
female students 1
1
97
till
1
0
1
1
Québec
of before
0
3
3
1
2
1
2
0
to
93
93
94
97
till
2
1
1
0
All Provinces
of before to till
2
2
94 1
3
1
95 1
1
2
95 1
1
1
97 1
Quarter of did not exceed 6 percent of the total respondents in any individual
province. This expression is distinctively American. It confused the Canadian reporter
Kevin Newman: “At first, I was baffled when people asked to get together at ‘quarter
of.’ It means ‘15 before the hour.’” (Maclean’s, April 10th, 2000, p.12). The Eastern
provinces scored highest for this variant; this was consistent with the observation that in
the neighbouring New England states, of had more currency than to (Allen, LAUM II, p.
67). While quarter of and quarter till were both identified as Midland forms, in the
regions surveyed by LAUM, of was favoured over till. Of was recorded in the LAMSAS
Chia-Yi Tony Pi
85
regions of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, but rarer to
the south.6
Quarter till is a variant associated with Scotland, and in North America it
predominates in the Appalachians; in LAMSAS, only a couple of New York informants
used that form. In Reed (1965), which investigated dialects in Pennsylvania, the Midland
till form dominated central and southern Pennsylvania, while to dominated the north and
west, of to the east. Quarter before is the least popular of the variants in the regions
considered, but it is associated with British English.
In Table 3, I give the breakdown of variants by age/education:
Table 3 - Percentage of respondents by age/education in the Upper Midwest for nn:45
(LAUM, II, p.67); Type I (oldest, 8th grade education), Type II (ages 50-60, high school
education), Type III (youngest, college or university education).
quarter to
quarter of
quarter till
TYPE I
TYPE II
TYPE III
52%
31%
7%
49%
34%
9%
56%
19%
6%
AVERAGE
51%
31%
8%
The digital variant, (eleven)-forty-five, was noted in LAUM as being more
common among the younger respondents; influence from railroad and radio was also
cited by a few respondents. As for (nn:30), the collection of data on the -forty-five
variant varied with the fieldworker. The -forty-five form was found in the same
LAMSAS areas as for -thirty, i.e., the deep south and northern New York. The New
York respondents who used forty-five resided very close to the Canadian border, which
suggests that the use of that variant may have been a Canadian influence. However, in
The Survey of Canadian English, the digital form was not listed as a variant for the
respondnts to choose. This is a serious flaw in the questionnaire, since no data could be
collected to gauge to what extent the digital variant had currency in Canada at the time of
that survey.
2.3
(nn:45) versus (nn:40)
Question 18 on the Dialect Topography questionnaire departs from these past
surveys in that it tests the variable (nn:40) instead of the standard (nn:45). While both
variables use the same prepositions, the number of minutes is different. Would there be a
significant difference in percentage use of these two variables, or would speakers not
distinguish between the two?
I believe there are strong reasons to treat these two variables as separate.
Consider the clock dial. At most, there are sixty divisions to a clockface, with twelve
major hour-marks. However, four of these hour-marks may be considered to be more
prominent than the others, set in orthogonal angles as in a compass: 12, 3, 6, and 9.
6
In the Canadian regions surveyed by Dialect Topography, all respondents who used of instead of to either
came from or had a parent from the United States.
86
Toronto Working Papers In Linguistics
These cardinal hour-marks may be termed respectively the o’clock-mark, the quartermark, the half-mark, and the three-quarters-mark.
Historically, the hour was divided into hour-fractions such as halves, thirds and
quarters. While third does not appear in Modern English as an hour-fraction, quarter and
half are familiar terms, as it may be easier to read the minute-hand in relation to the
cardinal hour-marks than minor hour-marks and minute-marks. This performative task
may make a difference between the processing of times that use hour-fractions and those
that do not. Whereas (nn:40) may be expressed as analog-numeric or digital, (nn:45)
may be expressed in three ways: analog-numeric, analog-fraction, or digital.7 This is
summarized below, with one example chosen for each cell. I include (nn:30) for
comparison in Table 4:8
Table 4: Possible variants for three time-telling variables.
analog
fraction
numeric
digital
(nn:45)
(nn:40)
(nn:30)
quarter to (nine)
fifteen of (nine)
(nine)-forty-five
none
twenty till (nine)
(nine)-forty
half past (nine)
thirty after (nine)
(nine)-thirty
It would be prudent to treat (nn:45) and (nn:40) as similar but not the same
variables. In fact, they may have very different behaviours, given that nn:45 has more
variants than (nn:40), as well as involving hour-fraction terms that may influence a
speaker’s choice of variants. However, in the absence of data to the contrary, I will
assume in this paper that the variants for (nn:40) and (nn:45) are comparable.
3.
Dialect Topography
3.1
Project Background
The Dialect Topography project (Chambers 1994) is a postal questionnaire that
covers four regions of Central Canada. Whereas traditional dialectology selected sets of
subjects who were predominantly NORMs (nonmobile older rural males), more recent
surveys, like Dialect Topography, sought subjects from a more representative
population.9
7
The analog-numeric form, fifteen (minutes) to/of/till, appears rarely but is attested to (LAUM, p.67). One
respondent commented, “I wouldn’t say ‘quarter.’”
8
There are also times which do not have the minute hand pointing to an hour-mark (e.g., 11:43). This type
of linguistic data has not been collected in any of the works I know of, but it may be worth examining. I
suspect that the digital form may be the variant of choice, as there would not be an analog-fraction variant
and the analog-numeric form (e.g., seventeen minutes to twelve) may be rarer due to the extra cognitive
processing involved.
9
For example, out of the 182 LAMSAS respondents from New York, 128 were male, 113 were rural, and
the median age group was age 70-79 (the youngest informant being age 38 in 1941).
Chia-Yi Tony Pi
87
All the Dialect Topography questionnaires ask 87 questions, of which 11 relate to
personal data (including age, sex, education, occupation, place of birth, parents’ place of
birth and place of birth), 76 linguistic questions pertaining to vocabulary, pronunciation,
syntax, morphology, and usage. Four additional questions (which appear on all but the
Golden Horseshoe questionnaire) ask for the level of English language use in different
social contexts.
From this personal information, eight independent variables were determined:
Age, Sex, Place, Education, Social Class, Occupational Mobility Index, Regionality
Index (Chambers 2000a), and Language Use Index (Chambers & Heisler 1999). A
logistic regression program designed to analyze data collected for sociolinguistic
variation studies called GoldVarb (Rand and Sankoff 1990, Young and Bayley 1996) was
used to identify which of these independent variables were significant for a given region.
The regions surveyed (with their abbreviation and the number of respondents in
each area) were the Golden Horseshoe (GH = 935), Ottawa Valley (OV = 681), Québec
City (QC = 307), and Montréal (M = 500).10 There were also 80 New York respondents,
divided into those who live in the Canada-U.S. border region of Niagara (NY1 = 38), and
those who reside elsewhere in New York (NY2 = 42).
3.2
Coding the Responses
There was great variation in the responses, as expected from open-ended
questions like Q18 and Q49. For both questions, four major types of differences were
coded as follows:11
i.
syntactic (analog-digital)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
j.
k.
l.
m.
10
(D)
(M)
(T)
(B)
(L)
(V)
(Q)
(A)
(P)
(H)
(2)
(w)
(/)
digital
military
to
before
till / ‘til
of
quarter to
after
past
half (hour)
dual responses
wrong responses
null responses
e.g., eleven-forty
e.g., eleven hundred and forty hours
e.g., twenty to twelve
e.g., twenty before twelve
e.g., twenty till twelve
e.g., twenty of twelve
e.g., quarter to twelve
e.g., half after nine
e.g., half past nine
e.g., half nine
e.g., half past nine or nine-thirty
e.g., what’s the time or eight o’clock
Regional directors for these project regions are: Jack Chambers, University of Toronto (Golden
Horseshoe, 1993); Troy Heisler, Laval University (Québec City, 1997); André Lapierre, University of
Ottawa (Ottawa Valley, 1998); Charles Boberg, McGill University (Montréal, 1998).
11
In this paper, only syntactic and degree of error are discussed. Units of measure and frame are included
for completeness, but not used in this particular. The latter two pertain to issues of style, and appear to be
influenced by age and gender. I intend to discuss these forms in a separate paper.
88
Toronto Working Papers In Linguistics
Though technically quarter to should be coded as T (to), some speakers round off
time expressions to the nearest cardinal hour mark; quarter to was coded as Q to identify
these speakers. Some latitude was given to incorrect responses like twenty to eleven,
which uses the form twenty to but reports the wrong hour. The code w is assigned to any
datum with a degree of error that exceeded 2, as defined below:
Since these two questions involve a perceptual/cognitive task, errors such as
misreading the hour and/or minute hands inevitably occur. A degree of error was
assigned to each datum.
ii.
degree of error
a. 0
correct time
b. 1
within 5 minutes
c. 2
only hour is incorrect
d. 3
minute hand symmetry error
e. 4
hands reversed
f. 5
compound or total error
e.g., eleven-forty
e.g., quarter to twelve
e.g., twenty of eleven
e.g., eleven-twenty
e.g., eight o’clock
e.g., twelve-twenty
Spelling errors were not coded. The maximum degree of error, 5, was assigned to
responses which combined two types of errors (e.g., twelve-twenty), responses where the
respondent confuses the question for the variable being tested (e.g., what’s the time), and
responses that take the question too literally (e.g., six o’clock as a response to Q18, which
is opaque unless the respondent looked at his own watch).
iii.
units of measure
a. 0
no units
b. 1
units
e.g., twenty to twelve
e.g., twenty minutes to twelve,
eleven hours and forty minutes
For (9:30), the minutes form is not available to the analog form, since half past
does not allow for a variant like *half minutes past. Although it is theoretically possible
to say half hour past (nine), no respondents in any project region gave a response of that
form.
iv.
frame
a. 0
b. 1
no frame
it is / it’s _____
e.g., twenty of twelve
e.g., it is twenty of twelve
These four codes may be combined into a single notation that will summarize the
datum at a glance. For example, for Q18, T101 is the code for it’s twenty minutes to
twelve, and D010 is the code for eleven hours and forty minutes. Specific types of
differences may be omitted, depending on the dependent variable under investigation.12
12
The multi-digit code may be converted to a single letter (e.g., T101 as x, D000 as y, etc.) to conform with
GoldVarb requirements.
Chia-Yi Tony Pi
3.3
89
Findings
I begin with a macroscopic view of the analog-digital dichotomy for both (9:30)
and (11:40) in section 3.3.1. In section 3.3.2, I present the interactive matrix method that
uses dual responses to support the findings in 3.3.1. In section 3.3.3, I examine (9:30) in
greater detail, and (11:40) in section 3.3.4.
3.3.1
Analog Versus Digital
Figure 1 summarizes the percentage of respondents in all regions who chose the
digital variant for the variables (9:30) and (11:40), plotted against eight age groups along
the abscissa (oldest being over 80, descending in decades to the 14-19 age group). The
solid lines represent (9:30) and the dotted lines (11:40).
M-40
QC-40
GH-40
OV-40
QC-30
GH-30
OV-30
NY-30
NY1-40
NY2-40
M-30
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
over 80
70-79
60-69
50-59
40-49
30-39
20-29
14-19
Age
Figure 1. Percentage of respondents by age for the digital variants of 9:30 (-30, solid
lines) and 11:40 (-40, dotted lines) in the Canadian Golden Horseshoe (GH), Montréal
(M), Ottawa Valley (OV), Québec City (QC), New York Golden Horseshoe region
(NY1), and New York elsewhere (NY2). NY combines NY1 and NY2.
The graph above shows that the digital form appears to be gaining currency for
both (9:30) and (11:40) in all regions except in NY2. However, the two variables are not
uniform in their transition from analog to digital.
All regions are using the digital variant of (9:30) to a great degree, with the
changes towards digital converging in the younger age groups. It appears that 9:30 is
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Toronto Working Papers In Linguistics
nearing the end of the analog-digital change. In fact, the two youngest U.S. age groups
use the variant nine-thirty without exception.13
In contrast, (11:40) is shown to be relatively stable for all regions and all age
groups from 30-39 to the over 80s, with approximately 20 percent or less of the
respondents choosing the digital variant. However, the two youngest age groups exhibit
a divergence in the regions for the digital use: Montréal jumps sharply from 14 percent
(ages 30-39) to 56 percent (ages 14-19). The Golden Horseshoe does not increase as
much for the same interval (from 13 percent to 23 percent), and neither does Ottawa
Valley (from 20 percent to 22 percent). It appears that there is a detectable change
towards the digital among the younger age groups in the Québec survey regions, and this
change appears to be at an initial stage.
Though both (9:30) and (11:40) are undergoing a general change from analog to
digital, why are they changing at different rates? Historically, the use of analog hourfractions like quarter and half preceded the use of the digital sixty-minute divisions like
-thirty by centuries. The analog variants have been facing steady competition from the
digital forms, which offer more precise time-reckonings. This is supported by data from
previous surveys which show that the (9:30) variable was changing from analog to
digital, the latter gaining favour among younger age groups (LAUM). What separates
(9:30) from (11:40) is the availability of the hour-fraction for expression (9:30). It may
be the case that half, being associated with a cardinal hour-mark and thus seeing more use
in everyday speech, is more vulnerable to competition from the digital variant. If this
were true, then it constitutes an additional reason to treat (11:40) apart from (11:45), as
the latter also uses a cardinal hour-mark.
3.3.2 Analog-Digital Interactions
It was demonstrated in the previous section that the digital variant of (9:30) has
far more currency than the digital variant of (11:40) in general. We may also find
additional support from the Dialect Topography data for this observation that (9:30) is
undergoing a faster change to digital than (11:40) by examining their dual responses. I
present my argument below.
There are two likely patterns for two related changes a and b. First, there may be
only a single change, consisting of a general rule Z that is applied homogeneously to two
different sets of data. Thus, the changes a and b would appear simultaneous. In the case
of the analog-digital data, this scenario means there is a single, general, analog-to-digital
rule that applies to all time expressions. Let us call this the single change scenario.
The sceond scenario does not involve a single, general change but two separate
but related changes. If these two changes occur simultaneously, they would be
indistinguishable from a single change, as described above. More interesing is the case
where the two changes occur at different times (either a then b or b then a). In other
words, the change from half past nine to nine-thirty does not occur at the same time as
the change from twenty to twelve to eleven-forty, but one change follows the other. I will
call this the sequential change scenario.
13
For NY1 and NY2, only the 14-19 and 20-29 age groups have large enough survey populations to do an
age comparison.
Chia-Yi Tony Pi
91
An advantage to analyzing two related changes together is that new insights may
emerge from a cross-tabulation of their variants.14 I will call these tables interaction
matrices. The simplest interaction matrix is illustrated in Table 5a, where the two main
variants of (9:30) and (11:40) are cross-tabulated. To be consistent, the variants for the
first variable encountered on the questionnaire will always be placed vertically, and the
variants for the second variable encountered will be placed along the top of the table.
Table 5 – a) Cross-tabulation of the (9:30) and (11:40) variants, b) by percentage and
number of respondents, all project regions organized according to analog and digital.
Percentages are calculated out of the sum of all four cells.
9:30
Analog Digital
11:40 Analog
Digital
Aa
Da
Ad
Dd
9:30
Analog
11:40 Analog
Digital
Digital
10.7%
249
72.9%
1693
0.3%
8
16.0%
371
The single-change scenario would be appropriate if the Ad and Da cells have a
similar number of respondents. If the data show either the Ad or Da cell with a
significantly larger number than the other, then the sequential change scenario must
apply. The actual data is provided in Table 5b.
The Da cell, i.e., the combination nine-thirty and twenty to twelve, has the highest
percentage of the respondents. In contrast, Ad (the combination half past nine and
eleven-forty) has less than one percent of respondents. This evidence suggests strongly
that the change from analog to digital should be analyzed as two separate changes, with
the change from Aa to Da (half past nine to nine-thirty) preceding the change from Da to
Dd (twenty to twelve to eleven-forty). Clearly, few people take the alternate route, i.e.,
acquiring the digital variant of (11:40) prior to the digital variant of (9:30).
Let us take this analysis one more step, expanding the basic interaction matrix to
an extended interaction matrix. Suppose that dual responses (i.e., both the analog and
digital forms were given) represent respondents who are undecided as to which variant
they prefer; they are currently undergoing the change to digital.15 For example, if a
speaker responds to Q18 with both twenty to twelve and eleven forty, they are in flux
between the analog and digital forms for the variable (11:40). Over time, it is not
unlikely that these speakers may choose one as their preferred form. For the present
analysis, I will treat dual responses as intermediaries between the analog and digital
forms. This assumption will permit the addition of the dual variants to the tables above,
between the analog and the digital. The revised cross-tabulation is given below. each
cell is assigned a letter for ease of reference. Cells B, D, E, F and H are called dual
response cells.
14
The variants classified as analog below include all preposition types, e.g., twenty to, twenty of, twenty till,
etc.
15
Theoretically, it is possible that the respondent is changing from use of the digital to the analog.
However, the respondent is assumed to be still in flux, not making a decision as to which he or she prefers.
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Toronto Working Papers In Linguistics
Table 6a. Cross-tabulation of the (9:30) and (11:40) variants by number and percentage
of respondents from all project regions organized according to analog, dual and digital,
with the most probable path of change being the shaded area, A-B-C-F-I.
(9:30)
Analog
Dual (both)
A
half past
(11:40)
Analog
twenty (to)
Dual (both)
D
twenty (to),
eleven-forty
249 twenty (to)
10.20%
E
half past
twenty (to),
1 eleven-forty
0.04%
H
half past
G
Digital
eleven-forty
B
8 eleven-forty
0.33%
Digital
half-past,
nine-thirty
C
nine-thirty
50
2.05%
half-past,
nine-thirty
14
0.57%
half-past,
nine-thirty
3
0.12%
twenty (to)
1693
69.39%
nine-thirty
F
twenty (to),
eleven-forty
I
51
2.09%
nine-thirty
eleven-forty
371
15.20%
Table 6a expands upon Table 5b. If the most likely path of change follows the
cells with the highest number of respondents, then the sequence is as follows. The
change from half past nine to nine-thirty (the sequence A-B-C) precedes the change from
twenty to twelve to eleven-forty (the sequence C-F-I), as shown in Table 6b below. There
are too few respondents in cells D, E, G, and H comparatively to make them strong
candidates as steps in the sequence of change.
Table 6b. Path of change following the cells with the largest percentage of respondents.
Shading indicates a high number of respondents for that cell.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
Even with an open question, there is a tendency for respondents to choose a single
answer. Thus, single responses expectedly outnumber dual responses. It may be more
informative to examine dual responses as a set apart from single responses. the following
table shows only those respondents who gave at least one dual response, organized
according to the variants used. Percentages were calculated out of the total of these five
cells instead of the total number of respondents. It is evident that the shaded cells (B and
F) in Table 7a are the major dual variants.
Chia-Yi Tony Pi
93
Table 7a. Cross-tabulation of the (9:30) and (11:40) variants by percentage of
respondents who used a dual form, all project regions, organized according to analog,
dual, and digital.
9:30
Dual
Digital
Analog
11:40 Analog
Dual
42.0%
0.8%
11.8%
Digital
42.9%
2.5%
If there were but a single, simultaneous change, we would expect a diagonal
pattern of A-E-I. The rationale for the diagonal is that if there is a single analog-to-digital
change that applies uniformly, people wavering between these two forms would give a
dual response for both (9:30) and (11:40), i.e., the central dual response cell E would
have a higher number of respondents than the other dual response cells, B, D, F or H.
Tables 7b and 7c. Paths of change following the cells with the largest percentages of
respondents. Shading indicates a high percentage of respondents for that cell. b)
expected pattern for a simultaneous change A-E-I, c) example of an incoherent pattern
A-D-C-H-I.
b.
c.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
The dual responses permit us to check the predictions made by the smaller 2x2
table earlier in 5b. One would expect the intermediary steps along the most probable path
of change to have more respondents than the other dual response cells. If, for example,
cells B and F had very few respondents compared to the other dual response cells, then a
case could be made against the predicted direction of change (from A to C to I).16 For
example, the pattern in Table 7c above would show an incoherent result, as one might
obtain if an interaction matrix is constructed for two unrelated variables (e.g., (9:30) and
(couch)).
16
The ordering of the two questions may have an impact on the number of dual responses as well: for
example, respondents might opt to answer with dual responses more frequently for the second question,
after having encountered the first. A tendency towards a specific form might be checked by cells in a
column (B-E-H) or row (D-E-F) scoring highest in the number of respondents. For example, if row B-E-H
were highest in the number of responses, then it might be evidence that people tend to respond to the
second question more frequently with dual responses. This is illustrated below:
2nd question
A
B
C
1st question
D
E
F
G
H
I
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Toronto Working Papers In Linguistics
We can draw several inferences from Table 6b. A speaker who says half past
nine (only) will almost certainly say twenty to twelve. A response that includes only the
half past nine variant belongs to cell A, D, or G. Refer back to Table 6a. As cell A has
249 tokens, significantly outnumbering D (1 token) and G (8 tokens), cell A is the most
likely set of responses. Since both variants in A are analog, a speaker who uses half past
nine exclusively will likely also use twenty to twelve exclusively.
Second, a speaker who says eleven-forty will probably say nine-thirty. A
response that includes only the eleven-forty variant belongs to cell G, H, or I. Cell I has
371 tokens, outnumbering G (8 tokens) and H (3 tokens). Thus, cell I is the most
populous cell of the three, and therefore a response for (11:40) that is exclusively elevenforty is most likely associated with the variant nine-thirty for the (9:30) variable.
This method of using dual responses to gauge a change in progress merits further
examination. Cross-tabulating the variants (including dual responses of two related open
questions) should make it possible to detect patterns of use and perform statistical
analyses on the data to determine whether or not the results are significant. There are
many other question pairs in the Dialect Topography survey that would be well-suited for
furthering this research: Q4 (indoor tap or faucet) and Q5 (outdoor tap or faucet); Q12ac (three different questions on porch and veranda); Q22 (cloth napkin) or Q31 (paper
napkin); Q23 (cherry stone or pit) and Q32 (peach stone or pit); Q70 (pick-up hockey)
and Q71 (pick-up baseball).17
3.3.3 (9:30)
There are two major variants for (9:30): half past nine and nine-thirty. Half after
occurred in less than one percent of the data. For all project regions, age was found to be
the only significant independent variable for (9:30), except for Montréal, which also had
a significant gender-based difference.18
17
Although Q24 is a closed question (respondents choose from three listed options), there are still several
respondents who check off more than one box, permitting a dual response analysis.
18
For the 11:40 data, the independent variable of Education was found to be statistically ingnificant for the
digital variant in the Canadian Golden Horseshoe. As well, the variable of Social Class was significant for
the digital variant in Québec City. However, these findings thus far have not yet been found to be useful in
our understanding of time expressions.
Chia-Yi Tony Pi
95
Ontario - 9:30
GH-30
OV-30
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
over 80
70-79
60-69
50-59
40-49
30-39
20-29
14-19
30-39
20-29
14-19
Age
Quebec and New York - 9:30
M-30
QC-30
NY-30
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
over 80
70-79
60-69
50-59
40-49
Age
Figures 2a and 2b. Percentage of respondents using the digital variant of 11:40 in Ontario
(GH and OV) and Québec (M and QC) by age, including New York.
Looking at the graphs, it appears that the nine-thirty variant has reached a plateau
of roughly 90 percent for all regions since the 40-49 age group, with Ottawa Valley
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Toronto Working Papers In Linguistics
reaching the plateau earlier, with the 60-69 age group. Very little change is observed for
the last two age groups for all regions. The recent addition of digital technology does not
appear to have increased the use of the digital variant. The most probable cause is that
the plateau has been stable for forty years and is at the height of use; further changes are
unlikely at this stage. This is certainly true for the U.S. speakers under 30, who
uniformly use nine-thirty and never half past nine.
Comparing the current and past trends, it appears that the 1949-53 study in
LAUM, which showed that the -thirty variant was slowly increasing with time (51
percent for those born circa 1890 or earlier, 58 percent for those born between 18901900, and 62 percent for those born after 1900), correlates strongly with these results
from the Dialect Topography project. Most of the over-80 age groups are found to have
roughly 60 percent digital responses (63 percent in the Golden Horseshoe, 71 percent in
Ottawa Valley, and 56 percent in Québec City). Montréal appears to be an exception:
starting at 93 percent for the over-80s, dropping down to 63 percent for the 60-69 yearolds before resuming the increase towards the digital form. The same dip can be seen for
Québec City, showing a similarity between the two cities.
It appears that this initial change towards digital coincided with the development
of railroads in the early nineteenth century. At first, each city or town had its own local
time: a clockmaker or town clock served as the standard for each locale. As a result,
initial train schedules were confusing, as the times were based on each cities’ own. It
was the Canadian, Sir Sanford Fleming, who invented time zones in 1878, creating a
standard that allowed for the efficient running of railroads. Likely, it was this Canadian
invention which made train schedules intelligible and useful, and as a result it may have
led to the popularization of the digital variant of (9:30), seen in train schedules. The
plateau of the digital form of (9:30) that we observe in the Dialect Topography data
might reflect the end result of a change that began last century.
3.3.2
11:40
In contrast, Figure 1 shows that the variable (11:40) exhibits a general preference
for the analog variants. There are increases in the digital responses for the two youngest
age groups, 14-19 and 20-29, for all regions except NY2. Whereas NY1 (New York
Golden Horseshoe) exhibits the same rising pattern as Montréal and Québec City,
elsewhere in New York the digital form is in decline.
The two New York regions pattern differently in the types of prepositions used
for analog time. Figures 3a and 3b illustrate the percentage by preposition of all analog
responses for NY1 and NY2:
Chia-Yi Tony Pi
twenty of
0%
twenty till
3%
twenty
before
0%
x-forty
28%
twenty to
69%
NY1 (New York Golden Horseshoe)
Figures 3a and 3b. Percentage (by preposition) of all analog responses for NY1 (New
York Golden Horseshoe) and NY2 (New York elsewhere).
twenty of
13%
twenty till
5%
twenty
before
0%
twenty to
56%
x-forty
26%
NY2 (New York elsewhere)
97
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Toronto Working Papers In Linguistics
In NY1, none of the respondents used the twenty of variant, but 3 percent used
twenty till in addition to the more common twenty to (69 percent) and -forty (28 percent)
variants. In contrast, all four variants are used in NY2 (of 15 percent, till 5 percent, to 55
percent, -forty 25 percent). It appears that the major difference for NY2 is the third
competing form, twenty of, which is an Americanism that does not appear elsewhere in
the project regions in any significant quantity. That NY1 lacks the of variant may
indicate a cross-border influence from Canada, as Canada lacks the twenty of variant
altogether, as mentioned earlier in this paper. The number of Canadians who responded
with the of and till variants were negligible; of those respondents in Canada who
answered of, their origins were always confirmed to be American.
Such a difference between the New York border region and elsewhere in New
York is not unique: Q24 (What do you call a carbonated soft drink?) on the Dialect
Topography questionnaire reveals that pop and soda occur in different proportions.
Chambers (2000b) shows that NY1 respondents prefer pop to soda (54.4 percent to 40.5
percent), whereas NY2 has a lower percentage of pop responses than soda (26 percent to
67 percent). NY1 appears to be influenced by the Canadian preference for pop over soda
(85.7 percent to 6.4 percent at the Niagara border).
Turning the focus to the Canadian dialects, it is clear from the graphs below that
there are two different patterns which conform to provincial boundaries:
Ontario - 11:40
GH-40
OV-40
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
over 80
70-79
60-69
50-59
40-49
Age
30-39
20-29
14-19
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99
Quebec and New York - 11:40
M-40
QC-40
NY1-40
50-59
40-49
NY2-40
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
over 80
70-79
60-69
30-39
20-29
14-19
Age
Figures 4a and 4b. Percentage of respondents using the digital variant of 11:40 in Ontario
(GH and OV) and Québec (M and QC) by age, including New York.
Age was found to be insignificant as an independent variable for the Ontario
regions, but significant for the two Québec regions. This is confirmed by the flatness of
the Golden Horseshoe and Ottawa Valley graphs and the distinctive, steep slope observed
in Montréal and Québec City graphs for the under 30s. Whereas the Ontario data exhibit
at most a 10 percent increase between age groups 30-39 and 14-19, for the same interval
in Québec, the increase is 30-40 percent.
What is happening in Québec correlates with the recent digital display revolution:
the increase of the digital variant begins in the 20-29 year-olds, and increases for the 1419 year-olds. Given that the digital revolution began in the 1970s, the under-30s would
be the generation most affected by the new technology. This upswing of the digital
variant in Québec matches that of NY1.
This dichotomy between Ontario and Québec project regions has also been
observed for several other variables on the Dialect Topography questionnaire.
MacKeracher (1998) identified the following variables that show the kinship of the
Montréal and Québec City data, as shown below:19
19
The Montréal data used for her paper had only 479 respondents (as of February 1999), rather than 500.
As well, I have not included the Hawkesbury (Ottawa Valley) data, which she has argued patterns more
closely to Montréal than other Ottawa Valley locales due to its proximity to that city.
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Toronto Working Papers In Linguistics
Table 8: Percentage (by preposition) of all analog responses for NY1 (New York Golden
Horseshoe) and NY2 (New York elsewhere) (MacKeracher 1998).
OV
86
14
M
81
19
QC
72
28
79
16
77
18
63
29
67
26
as in glad
as in glade
44
56
38
62
26
74
27
73
mom
as in tum
as in Tom
55
45
61
39
37
63
47
53
asphalt
sounds like sh20
sounds like s
78
22
71
29
39
61
52
48
variant
as in John
as in Joan
Q43
shone
Q7
knob for water tap
faucet
Q9
radiator
Q16
Q37
GH
92
8
4. Conclusion
As this paper has shown, innovations in technology throughout history have
influenced our method of telling time, and continue to affect us today. The increase in
the use of the digital form appears to consist of two sets of change. The first can be
traced to the nineteenth century, involving the variable (nn:30), and matches the
development of more accurate timekeeping devices, time zones, and the needs of the
railroad industry; it is near the end of its change. The second, involving the variable
(nn:40), is at the beginning of its change towards digital.
This paper also offers an abundance of further research possibilities. First, note
that expressions of time are necessary in all modern languages. Due to the historical
development of timepieces, there are variations in the telling of time in these languages.
It would be possible to perform cross-linguistic comparisons of say, English, German and
French, to see whether the digital form is gaining currency in other languages.
For example, time can be expressed with 60-minute units and hour-fractions in
French just as in English. Note that the difference between analog and digital in English
is syntactic: prepositions are used to express the analog, whereas linear order is used to
express the digital. Unlike English, however, both time expressions in French use linear
order to express time: the hour specification always precedes the minutes or hourfraction. One form for (11:40) is onze heures et quarante 'eleven hours and forty': this is
the typical digital (numeric) variant given for English. The alternative form is midi moins
vingt 'noon minus twenty', which uses prepositions like the analog, but has a different
order of hours and minutes.21 A similar difference is seen for the two variants of (9:30):
the form, neuf heures trente ‘nine hours thirty’, and the form, neuf heures et demi ‘nine
hours and half.’ The comparison between English and French for (11:40) is summarized
20
See also Chambers and Heisler (1999) for an analysis of the pronunciation of asphalt in Québec City.
Minuit ‘midnight’ may be used instead of midi. Et ‘and’ may sometimes be omitted, as in onze quarante
‘eleven forty’. Thanks also goes to David Heap for his comments on the French data.
21
Chia-Yi Tony Pi
101
below. It would be interesting to compare syntactic and non-syntactic systems of telling
time.
Table 9. Possible variants for English and French time expressions.
11:40
prepositional English
French
analog (min then hr)
twenty to twelve
-
digital (hr then min)
midi moins vingt
numeric
-
eleven forty
onze heures et quarante
English
French
It would also be useful to test a greater variety of times, ranging from (nn:30),
(nn:40), (nn:15), (nn:45), to times that do not correspond to an hour-mark. As we have
seen, different variables have different factors affecting the percentage use of their
variants. An experiment testing how people process time from a clockface may help
pinpoint the factors involved. A study along these lines might also give us a better
understanding of how errors occur; it seems logical that the processing of analog
clockfaces is subject to more misinterpretations than digital displays. As well, the new
analog-to-digital change is so recent, it is important to keep track of the change as it
occurs. Real-time data may tell us whether or not the change is catching on in Ontario
(and other Dialect Topography regions, as they are surveyed).
Finally, the interaction matrix method can be developed in more detail by
examining other pairs of related questions. The use of dual responses to check the
progress of a dialect change may prove to be useful in other related studies, not only in
morphosyntactic phenomena such as time-telling.
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