The OED strikes a balance between prescriptive and descriptive definitions. But I am very surprised to learn that there is another definition (during the current clock hour) which seems both bizarre and non-useful to me.
Given that many things are scheduled “on the hour,” it seems perfectly useful and natural to me to say something will be done by the top of the hour.
What I mean to say is that the potential for confusion is self-evident. The phrase you used (“top of the hour”) does not have the same problem.
Ah, I see. Like I said, I never realized the confusion before this thread. It’s pretty obvious now that I see the responses, but to those of us for whom this is a natural phrase simply meaning “before the end of the current hour,” it’s not really obvious. Same with the “next Saturday” type of confusion. Never realized it until I met people who used it in a different way.
I generally would use that to mean “the Saturday after the upcoming one,” and almost invariably find myself having to clarify. So I guess that’s a good analogy.
What about when public radio says “it’s six past the hour”? Obviously this refers to divisions of a clock.
That’s fine, because it doesn’t make sense any other way. But that doesn’t make ‘the hour’ officially refer to the clock.
It doesn’t really make any other sense to me. “Top of the hour,” “bottom of the hour,” “end of the hour,” all refer to the current clock hour.
Seems simpler to say “before 3.”
It is. But, well, there’s a million different ways to say the same thing in English (and presumably every other language.)
Or to think you’re saying the same thing, while other people think you’re not.
Just gotta know your audience. No confusion here among my peers.
How much before 3? I’d go with “by 3”.
What we need is a worldwide rollout of Newspeak to resolve all these issues