# Is “American hour” an expression in the UK? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 22, 2022, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-american-hour-an-expression-in-the-uk/973638 "2022-10-22T18:07:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-american-hour-an-expression-in-the-uk/973638/21 "2022-10-23T17:45:08Z")
I’m guessing it is attempt to allude to phrases like “the American century” and would have been clearer as “an American quarter of an hour.” ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-american-hour-an-expression-in-the-uk/973638/22 "2022-10-23T17:53:28Z")
> [@pjd](#): > > I don’t know, but if anyone asks, i can probably talk enough utter bollocks about it > to convince most people ! There’s [an app](https://youtu.be/msN7HNncHik?t=132) for that. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-american-hour-an-expression-in-the-uk/973638/23 "2022-10-23T18:00:24Z")
It sounds like when people say there are “2 minutes” left in the game when, in reality, those two minutes take 15 to play. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-american-hour-an-expression-in-the-uk/973638/24 "2022-10-23T18:28:44Z")
I’m pretty sure that what is meant is not that the game will go on forever but rather that there is not a mention of time in the playing rules , for example , a baseball game is defined as nine innings \* in which each team gets three outs. It’s not nine innings in which each team spends ten minutes at bat so that each inning lasts twenty minutes and a game nominally lasts three hours except, there is of course time that doesn’t count as playing time so the time elapsed from the start of the game to the end will of course be longer than three hours . Baseball doesn’t have the thing that other sports have , where my husband tells me there’s five minutes left but it takes twenty minutes to play five minutes. \* There are exceptions for rain shortened games and extra innings in the event of a tie ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-american-hour-an-expression-in-the-uk/973638/25 "2022-10-23T18:33:44Z")
Ah, right, that makes sense. j ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-american-hour-an-expression-in-the-uk/973638/26 "2022-10-23T18:35:14Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > Not sure what you mean about cricket here. If you are suggesting that it just goes on without a time limit until the game is over, that’s not the case. All professional games have a limit of time (usually 3, 4 or 5 days) or deliveries (overs bowled or balls bowled); you do sometimes see a combination of overs and time used. OK, clearly I was mistaken about cricket. Though I will say that the concept of a “time limit” for a game that’s measured in days is rather foreign to my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2022, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-american-hour-an-expression-in-the-uk/973638/27 "2022-10-23T18:41:36Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I’m guessing it is attempt to allude to phrases like “the American century” and would have been clearer as “an American quarter of an hour.” In other words, a period of time during which an American is the focus of attention. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-american-hour-an-expression-in-the-uk/973638.md?page=1)