select now() from table, why do we specify a table?

Question

whats the point of specifying a table if now() is going to be the same for any table.??

Answer 1

Try without specifying table, like this

SELECT NOW()

There are also

CURDATE() and CURTIME()

More on this

http://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_now.asp

EDIT: The same way in MS SQL, you can write a query like

SELECT getdate()

Answer 2

As far as I know FROM was needed in the SQL-92 standard (at least; that was the version I was able to find with some nice BNF grammar moments ago).

Maybe the logic behind was "functions" should use tables for producing output, so you have to specify something. In fact, I see quite low practical value in a query that only outputs the actual time.