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The second and third sentences of David Copperfield are as follows:

To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. 1850. Introduction by David Gates. Notes by Nitin Govil. New York: Modern Library, 2000. p. 3.

I assumed this meant that the eponymous hero was born on a Thursday night going into Friday. But later in the chapter the first-person narrator describes what has happened during "the afternoon of ... that eventful and important Friday" (ibid., p. 5): his great-aunt, Betsey Trotwood, has come to visit his mother for the first time. The narration makes clear that Miss Trotwood arrives on Friday afternoon, and that David is born the ensuing midnight.

Since he is born at 12 am on a Friday going into Saturday, wouldn't that make his birthday the Saturday rather than the Friday?

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  • I think your assumption is quite unusual. “On a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night” pretty unambiguously means Friday night going into Saturday; I cannot fathom anyone using the words ‘Friday’ and ‘at night’ like that if they actually meant Thursday night or Friday morning – it would have been phrased differently in that case. Commented 5 hours ago
  • Ignoring for the moment literary license and not having time to research how time was counted among the 1850s British literate, but to use a phrase from Doctor Who that educates marvelously the nature of the perception of time in a world obsessed with precision, time being "A big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff," I wouldn't be surprised at all (or worried about in the slightest) if everything between half-past eleven at night and midnight was considered "twelve o'clock at night." But for fun, I will point out that if this is the biggest worry you had yesterday, you're in great shape!
    – JBH
    Commented 1 hour ago

1 Answer 1

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My first instinct is that if he began to cry when the clock began to strike, that means he was born before midnight. Firstly because the birth comes before the crying, and secondly because the first chimes of the clock would be before the hour. This depends on exactly what's meant by "began to strike", since the twelve notes of the quarter bells might be referred to as chiming rather than striking, but the actual moment of the hour is supposed to be on the first note of the big bell that comes after the quarter bells. (Source: I grew up setting my watch according to the sound of Big Ben, heard on BBC Radio 4 every 6 and 12 o'clock.)

Secondly, days weren't always measured from midnight. Even today, informally, we'd refer to Friday as "today" if we were speaking in the small hours just after midnight of the night between Friday and Saturday. Historically (as well as in different cultures around the world up to this day), the definition of the transition point from one day to the next has varied:

  • Although days are now measured from midnight to midnight, this has not always been so. Astronomers, for instance, from about the 2nd century ce until 1925, counted days from noon to noon.

    -- Encyclopedia Britannica

  • For astronomical purposes, Greenwich Mean Time was reckoned until 1925 by the 24-hour clock commencing at noon; since then (in accordance with a hope expressed at the Washington conference) it has been reckoned from midnight, on a notional prime meridian a few metres away from the brass line.

    -- Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The History of Time: a Very Short Introduction, Chapter 1: "The Day"

  • Up to late 1805 the Royal Navy used three days: nautical, civil (or "natural"), and astronomical. For example, a nautical day of 10 July, would commence at noon on 9 July civil reckoning and end noon on 10 July civil reckoning, with pm coming before am. The astronomical day of 10 July, would commence at noon of 10 July civil reckoning and ended at noon on 11 July. The astronomical day was brought into use following the introduction of The Nautical Almanac in 1767, and the British Admiralty issued an order ending the use of the nautical day on 11 October 1805.

    -- Wikipedia, "Nautical time" (found thanks to our friends at History SE)

Even today, confusion exists about what happens when a baby is born around midnight, and which day should be "officially" considered their birthday. In 1820, in an era of less widespread pedantry and less precise timekeeping, it makes sense that Friday night would be considered as Friday (according to popular parlance) even if a key event took place on the point of midnight.

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  • 6
    On today's episode of "Why programmers hate dealing with dates and times". 😆
    – Vilx-
    Commented 17 hours ago
  • Don't forget the Jewish calendar, where days begin at sundown, not midnight.
    – Barmar
    Commented 7 hours ago
  • Add to this the poetic belief that the hour doesn't "officially" end until the last chime has been struck. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Dickens bought into that.
    – JBH
    Commented 55 mins ago

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