Or were all the old second counting systems wrong?
Many people have pointed out that if you start a timer on your phone and count out to 45 Mississippis, hippopotamus or number-one thousands it now ties out to a minute.
I have tried it a dozen times myself and after 45 counts I get anywhere between 54 to a minute and 4 seconds.
I specifically remember counting chunks of time as long as 15 minutes and not being off by a minute.
A whole lot of people just seem to have absolutely no sense of timing/rhythm.
A really weird place I’ve noticed that is at my work as a 911 dispatcher.
Once in a while we have to give CPR instructions over the phone, and a big part of that is counting with the caller to make sure they’re doing the chest compressions fast enough (100-120 beats per minute)
I was in band back in high school, I can keep that sort of rhythm in my sleep (though my throat starts getting pretty dry depending on how long it takes responders to arrive and take over)
But a handful of my coworkers really struggle with it, they count too fast or too slow, speed up and slow down, it’s a little terrifying to be honest.
The ones who do manage to keep good time have mostly had at least some music training, or are at least keeping an eye on the seconds counting by on the clock on our computer to keep time.
I just tried counting Mississippis with my eyes closed and a timer going, and I nailed it within a second. But I think I definitely went a little faster for the first 19 and then slowed down a little after that because there’s just less syllables in the numbers until you hit that point, and more after it.