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?
meaning - What time is 12.00pm? - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
abbreviations - Use of “12 m.” for noon and “12 p.m.” for midnight - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
What does "12pm" mean?
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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.
Wikipedia quotes The Chicago Manual of Style Online and says that
Although "12 m." was suggested as a way to indicate noon, this is seldom done and also does not resolve the question of how to indicate midnight.
I do not have access to this source, but found a more complete quote:
Except in the twenty-four-hour system (see 9.39), numbers should never be used to express noon or midnight (except, informally, in an expression like twelve o'clock at night). Although noon can be expressed as 12:00 m. (m. = meridies), very few use that form. And the term 12:00 p.m. is ambiguous, if not illogical. (source)
...and I think presently “12 p.m.” means noon, not midnight. Was it different in 1984?
Yes, absolutely! Things were different at the U. S. Government Printing Office in 1984:
For some people, including the United States Government Printing Office before 2008, the twelve hours before noon are numbered one o’clock ᴀᴍ up until twelve o’clock ᴀᴍ, and the twelve hours after noon are one o’clock ᴘᴍ up until twelve o’clock ᴘᴍ. Then in 2008, the US GPO switched things around.
Please see the lengthier article linked to above for why “12 a.m. and 12 p.m. are ambiguous and should not be used.”
I have the following deadline from a class:
"All reading posts are due the day before class at 12pm"
"i.e. if you are writing a reading response for Tuesday's class, it is due by 12pm Monday."
Does it mean that it is due at 12:00 noon, or 12:00 midnight?
I was assuming midnight, but because there are marks for a late submission, I really don't want to be wrong about this!
Edit: Thanks all, saved me! I'll save my response for another week then, since we can submit them rather flexibly.
B made a technical error, in both her original deadline specification and in her follow-up message to you, to imply that “12pm” has a well-defined meaning. It does not. 12:00 noon is neither ante meridiem (before noon) nor post meridiem (after noon); it is exactly noon, and it should be referred to as such (http://www.npl.co.uk/reference/faqs/is-midnight-12-am-or-12-pm-faq-time).
Likewise, 12:00 midnight is exactly midway between one noon (i.e., meridiem) and the next, so one might argue that it has equal right to be called either am or pm. Midnight is also neither an “am” nor a “pm.” You can remove all ambiguity by referring to it as midnight.
You can usually infer from context whether a speaker means 12n or 12m when she says “12pm,” which is surely why most people continue to do it. But in the case of your deadline, I’m with you: I might also have assumed that a more likely time for a deadline would be midnight.
I think that both your note and B’s response were respectful and polite. You should be glad you asked. Asking saved you and B from missing your schedules. Had her response been different (she could easily have answered in the opposite way, because of the undefined-ness of “12pm”), it might have saved you from mistakenly prioritizing your application over something more urgent.
There are some fun stories on this noon/midnight topic at http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1752,00.html. Search for the string “3.07” for one that I found particularly intriguing.
I agree with @TessellatingHeckler that B is being polite (as well as brief) in her response (she probably has a lot to do).
She says please, thanks, and Kind regards. If she had been less brief, perhaps she would not have sounded brusque to you.
Hi A.
Absolutely! For future reference, 12pm is 12 noon, and 12 midnight is 12am.
So, yes, the form is due by 12 lunchtime today, please.
Thanks, and Kind regards,
B
Imagine how many times she might have answered this question! Yet she is polite. (Had she said "sincerely", it might have been worse.) No harm done on either end.
(For future reference, imagine setting a digital alarm clock for an important event in the morning. A.M. begins at 12:00 at night, and ends with 12:00 noon - just as B pointed out.)