Yeah, us Brits tend to use it as shorthand for 'half past nine'.
I suppose logically we could say "half nine" for 8:30 and "nine half" for 9:30 - that would give two ways of saying each half-past time though, and since when did logic apply to language? It would make more sense for "quarter nine" and "nine quarter" where the two times are different, but I've never heard anyone say a time like that - they always bother to put in the words "to" or "past" when using quarter times. Often people will say just "quarter to" or "quarter past" or "half past" without giving the hour number - they assume you already know the hour or will guess the hour correctly, or it doesn't matter (for example with bus timetables when a bus arrives at "quarter to" the hour throughout the day).
Hi Joe, Stormy, Y's b, Crumb, Wats, and Limon!
834
987