M is for meridian

[victor steinbok]

There may be some notational ambiguity, but it's hardly absurd.
Although the time given generally is thought of as a moment in time,
in reality, it implies time forward. So if the time given is noon, the
time forward is PM. Personally, I have never seen 12M, although /i
have seen a share of "12 noon" and even 12N. The ambiguity is
frequently removed by specifying 12:01 instead of 12, which eliminates
the "moment in time" problem, but really just makes the "time forward"
assumption explicit.

VS-)

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The only sensible thing would be to use "12M" for midnight and "12N" for
> noon, but it may be too late.
>
> I recently had the "12PM" problem in making an airline reservation online.
> No live person in the vicinity was certain what it might mean.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 11:27 AM, Alison Murie <sagehen7470 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> To me, 12M means noon, but I can see that for some it might suggest
>> midnight.  Nevertheless, to use 12PM to mean noon & 12AM to mean
>> midnight strikes me as totally absurd.  I see these usages frequently.
>> ( It came to mind today when there are announcements of many demos &
>> rallies marking the anniversary of the Iraq invasion.  No doubt the
>> contexts will disambiguate the mistakes.)
>> AM

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