How to express a certain 60-minute period
If the time was 15:34, how could I refer to the 60-minute period between 14:00 and 15:00? If I were to say the last hour it would likely mean the period from 14:34 to 15:34.
So how do I express time period from x-1 o'clock till x o'clock, irrespective of how many minutes have passed x o'clock.
It's like the difference between 'every hour' and 'on the hour'.
Solution 1:
There seems to be some consensus that any 60-minute period one refers to should be called an hour, but I don't agree...
If I want to refer to the period between 14:00 and 15:00, I call that between 2 and 3, whether I mean the whole period or some incident that occurred within that time frame:
I was sleeping between 2 and 3.
How many customers did we have between 2 and 3?
The nice thing is that you can use the same expression for time periods other than 60 minutes as well.
Solution 2:
I think the clearest way to indicate this is simply to explicitly state the start time: "(the hour) from 14:00 to 15:00" or "the hour starting at 14:00". This might seem like a non-answer, but I'm not sure how often you'd ever need to express this meaning without knowing the specific time.
Solution 3:
A useful answer will depend on the context in which you want to use it, how technically precise it should be (need you worry whether now might be considered exactly x:00), etc.
Quite informally but plainly, you might use
The hour that began 60 minutes before the beginning of the current hour.
You might also use the term top of a/the hour:
From the top of the hour prior to the current hour to the top of the current hour.
Idiom definition:
at the top of the hour
Fig. at the exact beginning of an hour. (Alludes to the big hand on a clock pointing to the 12. Often heard on television or the radio. See also at the bottom of the hour.)
Every class in my school starts at the top of the hour. Our next newscast will be at the top of the hour.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. S.v. "at the top of the hour." Retrieved April 20 2015 from http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/at+the+top+of+the+hour