Why is it that Americans refer to 24 hour time as military time? I understand that the military uses the 24hr format but I don’t understand why the general public would refer to it like that?
It makes it seem like it’s a foreign concept where as in a lot of countries it’s the norm.
Most countries that use 24h time (Western Europe, ime) use both interchangeably - saying “at 18” or “at six in the evening” are both totally normal.
Just to add to this. I found a map on Wikipedia that shows this.
source
That map looks quite inaccurate, I wonder where they got that info.