M is for meridian

[Joel S. Berson]

At 3/19/2010 02:52 PM, Ann Burlingham wrote:
>On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 11:30 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: M is for meridian
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > 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.
>
>I find it ambiguous - 12 comes after 11, so why isn't 12PM midnight?

I don't find it ambiguous -- just confusing and illogical.  They
should have called the first hour 0 (zero).  After all, by Peano's
axioms zero is the first natural number.  Think how clear everything
would have become.  0:00 AM is just after 11:59 PM and just before
00:01 AM.  "They" didn't anticipate railroad and airplane timetables.

And the same goes for years -- we would have known exactly when the
century began.

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org