What is Time?: The answer to the "ultimate paradox"

In A Brief History of Time, on page 1, Professor Stephen Hawking admits to not knowing exactly what time is. Space-time, maybe, but time itself, no. It is the most commonly used noun in the English language; time is fundamental to our lives. It is a word used liberally to underpin critical scientific hypotheses; yet its understanding is a fudge. How come? Surely it can't be that complicated? Or maybe we do understand time, but the overuse, or misuse, of the word has clouded the definition. And science has run away with trying to explain it, and has failed badly. Should this quandary be in the realm of physics, cosmology or philosophy? I say it's more a matter of semantics. This purpose of this book is to show that time is a subtle, yet simple notion. By a straight-forward process of rationale and lateral thinking time can be wholly explained - with barely a passing reference to Quantum Theory or black-holes and not a mathematical formula to be seen!