How should one say times aloud in 24-hour notation?

Question

A couple years ago, I switched all my personal clocks 24-hour notation. I live in the US, and 24-hour time is used very, very rarely. So, I haven't been able to listen to anyone say times aloud. Here's my question: **What is the proper way to say a time aloud in 24-hour notation?** "Fifteen o'clock" sounds bad to me. I think I like "Fifteen hours" best, but it sounds a little formal. "Fifteen twenty-two" sounds okay to me, but still strange. Is there a 'best practice' here?

Answer 1

The very few Americans that use 24-hour time format usually do so because of a military background. In this case, they would refer to the number as ending in "hundred" and would neglect to include "o' clock", sometimes substituting in "hours". If the number is lower than 10, the 0 will be pronounced as 'Oh'.

E.X.

Joe: Are we going fishing tomorrow morning?

Ricky: Yeah, I'll be up at 0800 ("Oh-eight-hundred") hours.

Joe: Ok, see you then.

Outside of this specific context, it is extremely uncommon to hear Americans use 24-hour time format and doing so will likely cause confusion unless speaking to a military person. For purposes convenience/being understood most people who use 24-hour format personally will convert that time to AM/PM format. Even in the U.K., where 24-hour format is more widely used, you will still hear time orally referred to in AM/PM format for the most part.