为什么15点曾被叫做“中午”？
译者： 阿三。 原作者：anonymous
发表时间：2011-12-28浏览量：1764评论数：0挑错数：0
2000年前，每天的计时是从日出开始
The biggest surprises tend to hide in plain sight. We've found this to be true with the origins of words like hello (check it out), and especially the somewhat naughty roots of Miss (read about that here.) With noon, we’ve uncovered a remarkable fact that will change how you think of 12:00.
最大的惊奇常常藏在眼前。看一看如你好等词的词源（点这里），特别是一些跟性有关系的词根，如小姐（点击此处），皆是如此。关于中午，我们发现的惊人事实将改变你如何看待12点。
First, some essential background. Clocks and watches are relatively new inventions. Though some timekeeping devices, like sundials and water clocks, have been used for thousands of years, everyday people did not tell time all that often. (The mechanical clock as we know it was invented in the 1200s and was more fully developed in the 1500s.)
首先，说一下必要的背景。钟和表都是相对现代的发明。虽然一些计时设备，如日晷和滴漏，使用了成千上万年，然而人们每天仍不能准确的得知时间。（众所周知，13世纪发明了机械钟，15世纪进一步改进和创新）
In the Roman Empire about 2,000 years ago, the town bell told time for everyone in earshot, but the hours of the day were counted differently than today. In Greek, hour referred to any particular part of the day. In Latin, it came to mean “one twelfth of the day.” There were two cycles of twelve, as there are today, but rather than numbering the hours from midnight, like we do, the hours were numbered from the beginning of daylight. (Other languages, like Swahili, also number the hours in this fashion.)
在约2000年前的罗马帝国，钟的响声让每个人都能知道时间，但是每天的小时记法却和今天不同。在希腊，小时是指一天的特殊部分。在拉丁语中，小时意为“一天的1/12”。和现在一样，每天有两个12小时，但是和现在从凌晨开始第一小时不同，那是是从日出开始第一个小时。（其他的语言，如斯瓦希里语，也是从日出开始计时。）
The twelve-hour day was then divided into four periods of three hours each. The town bell rang at four intervals during the day to signal the time to all who could hear. The first hour, called Prime, rang at 6:00 a.m.; hour three (Terce) rang at 9:00 a.m.; hour six (Sext) rang at 12:00 p.m.; and hour nine (None) rang at 3:00 p.m. The early Catholic Church adopted these daily patterns in their rituals, and monks recited prayers at the canonical hours of terce, sext and none every day.
在当时，每12小时被分成4组，一组3小时。白天，钟响四下，每个人都能听得到。早上6点响第一个小时，称初；9点响第三小时，为第三时；中午12点响第六小时，叫第六时；下午3点响第九小时，即第九时。早期的天主教会在日常生活中采用了这样的计时，修道士依照教规，在第三时、六时、九时进行祷告。
What does this have to do with “noon”? Well, the word for the ninth hour, specifically the ninth hour of daylight, so 3:00, became “non” in Old English. As church traditions changed, the canonical hours of “non” began to happen earlier, closer to 12:00 p.m. We still don’t know if the time of the midday meal shifted from 3:00 to 12:00 or whether the time of Church prayers shifted, or both, but by the early 1200s, “noon” came to mean midday. In the 1300s, the earliest mechanical clocks showed a 24-hour dial, but by the 1500s, the 12-hour dial, starting at midnight, became standard. (The word afternoon came into common usage around this time as well.)
这和“中午”有什么关系？第九小时，即日出后的第九个小时，也就是下午3点，在古英语中称为“non”。随着教会传统的改变，教规中的第九小时开始提前，越来越靠近中午12点。现在，我们仍不知道是午餐从下午3点提前到中午12点，还是祷告的时间发生改变，抑或是两者都发生变化。但是在13世纪初，中午（noon）逐渐指中午12点。在14世纪，最早的机械钟一圈有24时，但在15世纪，从凌晨开始的12小时成了新标准。（这个时期开始经常使用“下午”这个词。）
The nomenclature around time telling has a rich and divergent history. The terms watch, clock, day, time, calendar, years, morning, evening, even a.m. and p.m. each have surprisingly distinct etymologies. Time seems to be one realm where the disparate roots of the English language (Greek, Celtic, Old English and others) fuse with the various social influences on the language (the Catholic Church, political conquests, and foreign invasions). Stay tuned for more explorations of the words of our days.
关于时间的命名法蕴含着丰富、各种不同的历史。表，钟，日，时间，日历，年，早上，晚上，甚至a.m.和p.m.等词语都有着惊人地迥异地语源。时间似乎融合了英语的不同语源（如希腊语，凯尔特语，古英语等）和对语言的各种社会影响（如天主教，政治征服和外国入侵）。请继续关注我们对词语的更多解释。
What about the months of the year? Learn about the history of September here.
每个月份都有怎样的来历？从此处了解九月的来历。
What do you think of the changes of the word “noon”?
你对“中午”这个词的变化有什么看法？
[ 此帖被東七區在2015-10-23 20:33重新编辑 ]
