Time is a more detailed version of date (it includes not just the date that the post was published, but also the time).
The format (‘l, F jS, Y’) indicates that the_time() would display:
- l – A full textual representation of the day of the week
- F – A full textual representation of a month, such as January or March
- j – Day of the month without leading zeros
- S – English ordinal suffix for the day of the month, 2 characters
- Y – A full numeric representation of a year, 4 digits
Therefore, in this case, the theme’s author was using the_time() just to show the date (most likely because the_date() only shows each date a single time on the page; whereas, I believe, the_time() will show the date and/or time for each post on the page, even if that date is the same as the previous post).
If I were you, I would replace that code with:
<?php /* the_time('l, F jS, Y') */ ?>
The way you replaced it, the date will still show up in the source of the page (maybe that’s the way you want it?); but if you actually comment out the PHP code as shown above, that date won’t show up at all.
