Hi puffin1932:
Thanks for the interesting question. The short answer to your question
is that, yes, the accepted convention is that 12 noon is written as
"12 p.m." and 12 midnight is written as "12 a.m.". However, the
following websites list reasons why the whole a.m./p.m. thing is not
really the "factual" way to go with midnight/noon.
Midnight and Noon
URL: http://www.astronomy.net/articles/13/
Quote: "While the sun is to the east of this meridian, it is morning.
So a.m. is an abbreviation for antemeridian or before mid-day. After
the sun has crossed the meridian, it is after mid-day or afternoon. So
p.m. is the abbreviation for post meridian or after midday or
afternoon. Hence to express the time from 12 noon to 12 o'clock at
night, we use the term p.m. and from 12 o'clock at night to 12 o'clock
noon we use a.m.
However 12 o'clock midday is neither ante meridian or post meridian.
It is simply 12 Noon."
12 PM .com - Noon or Midnight?
URL: http://www.12pm.com/
Quote: ""Technically speaking," neither noon nor midnight can be a.m. or p.m.
'Technically speaking' you are correct -- noon is not post meridian --
it IS meridian. However, since 12:00:01 is post meridian (or
12:00:00.01, for that matter), it makes more sense to say that
12:00:00 is post meridian for consistency's sake (or else you would
have both PM and AM in the same 12 o'clock hour). Similarly midnight
could be classified as BOTH PM and AM, because it is equidistant from
the meridian. But classifying it as PM would produce the same
confusion (i.e., 12:00 PM followed by 12:01 AM)."
Search Strategy (on Google):
* noon "12 pm"
I hope this helps.
websearcher |
