• samus12345@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    12am is midnight and 12pm is noon. But most people just say “noon” or “midnight” because it’s less confusing.

    • toynbee@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      That is confusing. “PM” is “post meridian” or, as I understand it, after the middle. One would think it wouldn’t be PM until 12:01 or at least 12:00:01.

      Which is why I, as you said, use “noon” and “midnight.”

      • schnokobaer@feddit.org
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        15 hours ago

        I can never remember it properly either but when someone reminds me (thanks samus12345) which way around it is it does kind of make sense.

        If you think of 12:00 as literally an infinitesimal slice of time it’s not really possible to give it an am/pm distinction, as it is literally the devider between the two. BUT, in a more real-life approach 12:00 is probably not an infinitesimal slice of time but the minute after a digital clock flipped to 12:00. That can be 12:00:00.00004 or 12:00:30 or 12:00:59.999944. And all those are indisputably pm.

      • samus12345@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Correct - technically, noon is neither am nor pm, but clocks and the like have to have SOMETHING there, so am for midnight and pm for noon was arbitrarily chosen.