If 12 AM is midnight, why is 12 PM noon? Shouldn’t “AM” stand for after midnight and “PM” after morning?
Is 12:00 AM considered morning or night?
Is 12 PM at noon? How is that when 11 am is in the morning And 1 am is in the night. Where did the 12 am go?
time - Is it correct to say "12:00am"? - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
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It feels backwards—12 noon is exactly halfway between midnights, but we call it PM. Wouldn’t it make more sense for 12 noon to be AM, since it’s before the second midnight?
My uncle and I are arguing about whether 12 AM is considered morning or night. I'm not going to say which side I take so I don't skew the results. Hopefully y'all can solve this argument.
I was talking to a native speaker (American woman ) and she corrected me as I was talking to her that 12 PM is the one in the day time not 12 AM. I don’t know if I have had it wrong all my life or what.
The Wikipedia article 12 Hour Clock is worth quoting at length:
Confusion at noon and midnight
It is not always clear what times "12:00 a.m." and "12:00 p.m." denote. From the Latin words meridies (midday), ante (before) and post (after), the term ante meridiem (a.m.) means before midday and post meridiem (p.m.) means after midday. Since strictly speaking "noon" (midday) is neither before or after itself, the terms a.m. and p.m. do not apply. However, since 12:01 p.m. is after noon, it is common to extend this usage for 12:00 p.m. to denote noon. That leaves 12:00 a.m. to be used for midnight at the beginning of the day, continuing to 12.01 a.m. that same day.
However, because practical confusion is still possible, some style guides recommend replacing "12:00 p.m." with "12:00 noon" and "12:00 a.m." with "12:00 midnight".
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition, 2000) has a usage note on this topic: "Strictly speaking, 12 a.m. denotes midnight, and 12 p.m. denotes noon, but there is sufficient confusion over these uses to make it advisable to use 12 noon and 12 midnight where clarity is required."
Many U.S. style guides, and NIST's "Frequently asked questions (FAQ)" web page, recommend that it is clearest if one refers to "noon" or "12:00 noon" and "midnight" or "12:00 midnight" (rather than to "12:00 p.m." and "12:00 a.m."). Some other style guides suggest "12:00 n" for noon and "12:00 m" for midnight.
The Canadian Press Stylebook (11th Edition, 1999, page 288) says, "write noon or midnight, not 12 noon or 12 midnight." Phrases such as "12 a.m." and "12 p.m." are not mentioned at all.
The use of "12:00 midnight" or "midnight" is still problematic because it does not distinguish between the midnight at the start of a particular day and the midnight at its end. To avoid confusion and error, some U.S. style guides recommend either clarifying "midnight" with other context clues, or not referring to midnight at all. For an example of the latter method, "midnight" is replaced with "11:59 p.m." for the end of a day or "12:01 a.m." for the start of the next day. That has become common in the United States in legal contracts and for airplane, bus, or train schedules, though some schedules use other conventions.
My advice is to use "12:00 noon" instead of "12:00 p.m." and "12:00 midnight" instead of "12:00 a.m." Realize that readers may be confused which day 12:00 midnight belongs to, so make sure context makes it clear.
12:00am is correct.
The clock goes from 12:00am (midnight) through 1:00am, 2:00am to 11:59am and then to 12:00pm (noon) through 1:00pm to 11:59pm and repeats.
It seems no more strange to go from 12:59 to 1:00 than it does to go from 11:59pm to 12:00am
It's a matter of convention, and the informal convention is that "midnight on the 10th" is more commonly the night between the 10th and the 11th. But the term is awfully ambiguous, and people do use it both ways.
(When I've scheduled things with "midnight" deadlines, I always say "11:59pm on the 10th" or something like that, to avoid the ambiguity. From experience, if you don't people will ask which you mean.)
By most definitions, the date changes at midnight. That is, at the precise stroke of 12:00:00. That time, along with 12:00:00 noon, are technically neither AM or PM because AM and PM mean "ante-meridiem" and "post-meridiem", and noon and midnight are neither ante- nor post- meridiem. However, for convenience, most people lump the 12:00:00 time with its nearest neighbour, 12:00:01, which IS AM or PM.
Since the date changes at the stroke of midnight, there is always ambiguity about which date you refer to. Midnight on the 10th technically means at the start of the 10th, but when most people speak they mean it to be at the end of the 10th.
If I said "I'll meet you Friday at midnight" or "I'll meet you Friday night at midnight" you (and most people) would probably interpret both times as the midnight that follows Friday noon. However, there are cases where the first sentence really means "the midnight at the start of Friday".
Since the common usage conflicts with the technical definition, if you want to be totally clear, use other words or other times.
Friday night at midnight
probably will always be interpreted as "Midnight in the night which follows Friday evening".
Midnight tonight
This means (to me) the midnight following today.
11:59 PM Friday
12:01 AM Saturday
These are totally unambiguous.