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I grew up telling time by using the terms "until" and "after", such as 10 until 5 or 20 after 6. I was in Washington DC once and asked a police officer for the time and he said it was 10 of 10. I wasn't sure if that was 10 minutes until or 10 minutes after 10. I've since adopted the digital method, 10:15, 4:45, etc. It seems to be more universal.
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Huh. I've never thought about it before, but I'd only use the "X of X" wording if the time was less than 30 minutes before the hour. And usually only 5 or 10. Like, I'd never say "30 of 4." I guess you need to be creeping close to the hour to make that phrasing useful.
I was taking a Samoan language class once and we were learning how to tell time, for which there is a specific syntax. The instructor told us if we used numbers to say something like "2:15," a Samoan would think we were referring to a hotel room number or the price of rice.
Being a perverse person -- and because I could never remember the correct syntax -- I determined that I would henceforth use the "2:15" wording, just to see what kind of looks people gave me. Sadly, no Samoan person ever asked me the time.