# Daylight Savings Time
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 20, 2000, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083 "2000-03-20T16:29:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2000, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/1 "2000-03-20T16:29:00Z")
This year, Daylight Savings Time in the US takes effect April 2 and ends October 29. This is 211 days, more than half a year.
So, why is Standard Time, which is in effect less than 1/2 the year, still called “standard”. Shouldn’t it be “Winter Time” or “Daylight Losing Time”?
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Wrong thinking is punished, right thinking is just as swiftly rewarded. You’ll find it an effective combination.
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### Author:  [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2000, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/2 "2000-03-20T16:31:00Z")
Better yet, why don’t we just drop Standard Time completely, and have Daylight Savings year-round? (Sorry, farmers.)
Maybe we could have Daylight Savings in the winter, and Double Daylight Savings in the summer.
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### Author:  [@Keeves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeves)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2000, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/3 "2000-03-20T16:42:00Z")
AWB: Because in Standard Time, midday and midnight (i.e., the halfway point between sunrise and sunset) will be around 12:00 for people in the middle of the time zone. It’s earlier for people on the eastern end of the time zone, and later for people in the west, but basically, midday is somewhere around 12:00, and that’s why it is called _Standard_. It happens around 1:00 on Daylight Savings Time.
Ike: People usually know that Daylight Time makes the afternoon last longer, but they often forget that it also makes the morning start later. On Standard Time, the sun doesn’t rise until about 7:15 through all of December and January in New York City. (Between 7:00 and 7:20, if you want it more exact.) If we went on Daylight Time in the winter, the sun wouldn’t come up until after 8!!! That means dark roads, very dangerous for schoolchildren. Energy rationing required this during WW2 and the oil crisis of the '70s, but very few people want it on a permanent basis.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2000, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/4 "2000-03-20T17:19:00Z")
Besides, it’s not just standard for the United States, it’s the world’s standard. There are 24 time zones and each is relative to the others. DST is a departure from the standard.
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I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.
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### Author:  [@SingleDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SingleDad)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2000, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/5 "2000-03-21T05:04:00Z")
[The Master Speaks](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_052.html)
[The same thing only different](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a910906.html)
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### Author:  [@Yeah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeah)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2000, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/6 "2000-03-21T06:38:00Z")
“Besides, it’s not just standard for the United States, it’s the world’s standard. There are 24 time zones and each is relative to the others. DST is a departure from the standard.”
Standard?? 24 time zones?
There are 29 different time zones.
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### Author:  [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2000, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/7 "2000-03-21T07:09:00Z")
There are 24 “basic” time zones, of course. If, however, you count all of the 15 and 30 minute time zones, I think there are more like 35, give or take a few.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2000, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/8 "2000-03-22T07:36:00Z")
Daylight savings time is not used everywhere but mostly in countries with northern latitudes where the difference on the length of the days between summer and winter is more pronounced. Tropical countries hardly have this difference and do not use summer time. China tried it for a few years and later dropped it because what helped the northern part of the country messed the southern part.
Also, In past years europe and the USA did not go from summer to winter time and vice versa on the same dates which meant there were a couple of weeks when the time difference between the two was changed. I heard lately this has been corrected and now we all go on and off at the same time but I have not personally confirmed this.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2000, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/9 "2000-03-22T13:29:00Z")
## I’ve always said “daylight saving time” because we are supposedly saving daylight; but most people seem to say “daylight savings time”, implying that multiple things are to be saved during daylight.
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?
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### Author:  [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2000, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/10 "2000-03-22T19:29:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Originally posted by Johnny L.A.:
> \*\*I’ve always said “daylight saving time” because we are supposedly saving daylight; but most people seem to say “daylight savings time”, implying that multiple things are to be saved during daylight.
>
> \*\*
The Department of Transportation which administers DST, says “Daylight saving time”.
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### Author:  [@ASPA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASPA)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2000, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/11 "2000-03-23T03:34:00Z")
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by AWB:
This year, Daylight Savings Time in the US takes effect April 2 and ends October 29 …
hEY, THANKS FOR THE INFO. wAS TRULY WONDERIN
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### Author:  [@Rodd\_Hill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodd_Hill)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2000, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/12 "2000-03-23T20:50:00Z")
Standard Time is yet another Scottish-Canadian plot!! See below:
[http://schwinger.harvard.edu/~terning/bios/Fleming.html](http://schwinger.harvard.edu/~terning/bios/Fleming.html)
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**Launcher may train without warning.**
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### Author:  [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2000, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daylight-savings-time/9083/13 "2000-03-24T00:20:00Z")
Actually, my anti-government buddies like to remind me that Daylight Saving(s) Time was put into practice during World War I – which obviously meant it was part of the evil socialist communist satan-worshipping baby-sacrificing _Woodrow Wilson’s_ plot to impose the dreaded New World Order.
Personally, I’ve always blamed the Bavarian Illuminati.