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scottevil110 t1_j9zyc9o wrote

They're called seconds because they are the second division of an hour.

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BubbleThrive OP t1_j9zyj40 wrote

Interesting! Why wouldn’t minutes then be firsts?

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Paaaaap t1_ja03e9o wrote

In Italian it is "minuti primi" and "minuti secondi" and they are shortened in "minuti" e "secondi" so minutes don't have the "first" in the name, i am guessing that in Latin it used to work somewhat similarly and the world followed

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vshawk2 t1_ja11i10 wrote

Maybe when the minute division came along (and was widely used and accepted), they hadn't started using the "seconds" division yet.

So, no seconds ... no firsts.

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