M is for meridian

[Mark Mandel]

To put it another way, all the other X:00 times have the same "_M" suffix as
X:01, X:02...X:59. 5:01 PM comes right after 5:00 PM, not 5:00 AM or 5:00 W
or anything else. Calling noon 12 PM, and midnight 12 AM, simply extends
this simple consistency to the top of the dial. Insisting in 21st-century
English that "PM" can only be applied to times after mid-day -- post
meridiem (< (*?)medi-diem), and "AM" to times before mid-day, ante meridiem
-- amounts to etymological pedantry.

Mark Mandel
I'm not pompous, I'm pedantic. There's a difference; let me explain it to
you.

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 12:13 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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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>

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