From: siegel@acm.org   
      
   On Monday, October 6, 2014 4:27:58 PM UTC-4, Brian M. Scott wrote:   
   > On Mon, 6 Oct 2014 15:09:22 -0400, Michelle Bottorff   
   >  wrote in   
   >  in   
   > rec.arts.sf.composition:   
   >   
   > > A. Tina Hall  wrote:   
   >   
   > >>> Racciman's World is hard enough with a "don't use" list   
   > >>> that includes: year, month, week, hour, minute, second,   
   > >>> mile, ghost, and cat.  There may be more that I've   
   > >>> forgotten.   
   >   
   > >> That reminds me. I really don't like using hours or   
   > >> minutes or seconds on not Earth worlds. Couldn't come up   
   > >> with a replacement though, except moment or eyeblink for   
   > >> second. If you have something for 'hour', tell me!   
   >   
   > > I end up using heartbeats a lot, instead of seconds.  But   
   > > hours are tough to do without.  Mostly I either get very   
   > > vague and go for "a while", "a short while" or "a long   
   > > while" or I use times of the day as reference points, so   
   > > "later that afternoon," etc.   
   >   
   > In his fantasy novels Modesitt generally uses 'glass'; it's   
   > never defined, but context makes it clear that it's an   
   > hour-like unit of time.  In one series he uses 'quint' for a   
   > smaller unit of time; I don't think that he defines the   
   > relationship between quint and glass, but I suspect that a   
   > quint is a fifth of a glass; its usage seems to fit   
   > something on the order of ten or fifteen minutes.  (In   
   > another series he uses 'quint' for unit of time that is a   
   > significant part of a year, probably a fifth of a year.)   
   >   
   > [...]   
   >   
   > Brian   
   >   
      
   I suppose a "glass" is the time for a more-or-less standard sand-glass (aka   
   hourglass) to run out.   
      
   In Lackey and I think some other fantasies I have seen "candlemark" used for a   
   period of time which seems to be more-or-less an hour. Never clearly defined,   
   that i recall.   
      
   But then, hours are a quite old concept, nor are they tied to a particular   
   astronomical feature.  I wouldn't feel drastically upset to read of an "hour"   
   in a work set on another world, indeed rather less by an 'hour" than by a   
   "mile" or a "meter", I    
   think.   
      
   I recall my confusion when I first read _Mission of Gravity_ where the hours   
   are earth-standard, but the "days" are local, so that an hour was several days   
   long. But it didn't take long to adjust.   
      
   -DES   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)