Is 12am Noon or Midnight?

[Vetalia]

then people fucking figure out from context that lunch isn't being served at a quarter to midnight jesus christ on the cross

[Purpelia]

Forsooth, but what say ye if the lunch service begins at 11:45?

then people fucking figure out from context that lunch isn't being served at a quarter to midnight jesus christ on the cross

Except that given you have failed to specify a time zone it might well be.

[Barunia]

I always wondered what the geographic spread of the 12 hour vs military time is. Is 12 hour time overwhelmingly popular in North America, but much less so elsewhere?

Very much so. Basically 12 hour time is common in North America and the English speaking world, except for Australia which uses 24 hour. 24 hour is common in rest of the world to the point that they have analog watches with 24 hour time.

Where the heck were you in Australia where 24h time was the norm???

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

"Lunch service begins on the seven bells of the forenoon watch."

Nice.

Forsooth, but what say ye if the lunch service begins at 11:45?

>:|

**rigs the main-yard for a keelhauling**

[Jebslund]

then people fucking figure out from context that lunch isn't being served at a quarter to midnight jesus christ on the cross

Except that given you have failed to specify a time zone it might well be.

In what fucking time zone do people eat a midday meal at midnight?

[Vetalia]

In what fucking time zone do people eat a midday meal at midnight?

If you work third shift.

[Jebslund]

In what fucking time zone do people eat a midday meal at midnight?

If you work third shift.

Fair point.

[Senkaku]

then people fucking figure out from context that lunch isn't being served at a quarter to midnight jesus christ on the cross

Except that given you have failed to specify a time zone it might well be.

yes, i frequently find myself encountering this problem

"lunch will be served at 11:45... TASHKENT TIME."

[Vetalia]

I think we really just need to blame the Babylonians for the base-60 clock setup.

[Thermodolia]

Very much so. Basically 12 hour time is common in North America and the English speaking world, except for Australia which uses 24 hour. 24 hour is common in rest of the world to the point that they have analog watches with 24 hour time.

Where the heck were you in Australia where 24h time was the norm???

Eh the info I got was from a bunch of Aussie YouTubers I watch who all use 24 hour time

[Farnhamia]

I think we really just need to blame the Babylonians for the base-60 clock setup.

Damned Akkadians ...

[Novus America]

then people fucking figure out from context that lunch isn't being served at a quarter to midnight jesus christ on the cross

Except that given you have failed to specify a time zone it might well be.

No, because when no time zone is specified it is assumed the time is local time.

[Forsher]

Ironically it was two of the smarter people in my Spanish class who thought 12am was noon...

Anyway, i think I'm going to start using a 24hr clock simply because it is clearer and avoids the potential 12am/pm confusion.

I don't think it's all that confusing, personally. Besides, it only happens for a literal second out of the day before the labels make sense again.

We were trying to co-ordinate a group assignment a few weeks ago between six people. This is not ideal (six is a pretty big number for a group; I can give you references) but it's also self-evident that when we tried to arrange meetings at 3 or 5 or 6 that we're not talking about "in the morning" because that would be stupid. And, in any case, you tend to get questions like, "Can we do the morning? I'm free at 11" or "how about the evening? 7?" and that's pretty late for a meeting, right? Well, we did it via Google Chat so it was fine.

And that's ignoring that saying AM and PM really doesn't add much time at all (if any once we accommodate syllables).

Now, of course, one might say that one caught the 1540 (fifteen forty or three forty) home and, as it happens, I mostly use 24hr time (my watch, this computer) but in a 9-5 world, there really cannot be confusion. Which is why trains don't (probably) use 12hr time since, hey, I catch the 7:14 and the 1914 all the time. But trains aren't real life. And I don't have friends who are just as likely to want to meet at 6am as they are at 6pm...

(All train times are made up for privacy reasons.)

[Forsher]

...have none of you people ever seen a digital clock lmfao literally look at your phones this thread was not needed

Mine is set up for 24h. As it should be. The only place 12h time has in the modern world is on fancy analog clocks (since they are obsolete and thus only need to exist as fancy novelty items) and for navigation.

So your argument is that you might seriously look down at your watch and be confused about whether or not it's AM or PM?

You seem to be asking me to believe that people completely ignore that it's possible to have a sense of the time of day without looking at the time.

For Christ's sake. I spent a month in London (nearly) on NZ time. Admittedly that's an easy conversion to make (which is why I didn't change my watch) but it's not hard to know that it's morning. Now, yes, I did get confused when I bumped my watch to 12 hour time but that's because I was using the wrong time zone's time and having to look closer to see whether it's AM or PM in NZ matters for the subtraction.

And ask anyone here. They'll tell you I'm not some genius. I probably shouldn't even be getting confused. I think it's because I could never remember if it was a 11, 12 or 13 hour conversion (DST you know).

then people fucking figure out from context that lunch isn't being served at a quarter to midnight jesus christ on the cross

Except that given you have failed to specify a time zone it might well be.

Remarkably people who cross timezones would need to specify what timezone they're talking about for any time to make any sense at all regardless of whether they're using 12 or 24hr time.

Someone give me one plausible situation for getting confused, please. We've had crazy ones like "what timezone are we in?" or stupid ones where people are deliberately using the wrong timezone but we need a plausible situation.

[Aeritai]

For me 12:00 AM is Midnight and 12:00 PM is the Afternoon so I can avoid confusion.

[Jebslund]

And ask anyone here. They'll tell you I'm not some genius. I probably shouldn't even be getting confused. I think it's because I could never remember if it was a 11, 12 or 13 hour conversion (DST you know).

Hence why DST is a sham and should be discontinued.

Except that given you have failed to specify a time zone it might well be.

Remarkably people who cross timezones would need to specify what timezone they're talking about for any time to make any sense at all regardless of whether they're using 12 or 24hr time.

Someone give me one plausible situation for getting confused, please. We've had crazy ones like "what timezone are we in?" or stupid ones where people are deliberately using the wrong timezone but we need a plausible situation.

Whether a shift starts at 6AM or 6PM, when it hasn't yet been specified to be a morning or evening shift (IE: "You start at 6"). Some idiots give the time of the shift before establishing *which* shift is being referred to. And is more of a quirk of 12 hour time in general than a "midnight or noon?" question.

[LiberNovusAmericae]

Midnight.

[Purpelia]

Except that given you have failed to specify a time zone it might well be.

In what fucking time zone do people eat a midday meal at midnight?

In what ever time zone is on the other side of the world when you are having lunch and the people happen to be looking at their clock as you do.

So your argument is that you might seriously look down at your watch and be confused about whether or not it's AM or PM?

You seem to be asking me to believe that people completely ignore that it's possible to have a sense of the time of day without looking at the time.

It's not about having a sense for the time of day. Its about having very specific terminology to split the day into two halves arbitrarily that equates directly to the american AM/PM model AND being used to actually using AM and PM as the designation for those. And unless your first language is english AND your culture happens to have that quirk of timekeeping (and for most of us in the human population ore or both of those are not the case) the whole thing is just incredibly non intuitive. And even for those that do the fact we would use very different words for those divisions makes a direct intuitive translation difficult or impossible.

It's basically the same as how you americans have trouble thinking in metric and we have problems thinking in imperial. If you tell me to draw a line 2.5cm long I can literally do that offhand without even looking. But if you tell me to draw a line an inch long I have to stop, do math in my head, rewind and eventually draw something all the while you are staring at me me as if I were an alien. And yet those two lines are exactly the same length.

I have the same thing with AM and PM. In any realistic real life situation I would simply newer use those two words. Not unless I was talking to an american. So every time I have to translate time between 24h and AM/PM I have to stop and think to remember what the hell those two actually mean.

Remarkably people who cross timezones would need to specify what timezone they're talking about for any time to make any sense at all regardless of whether they're using 12 or 24hr time.

It was a cheeky poke and nothing more. I was basically making the joke that whilst it might be a sensible time where the guy having lunch is somewhere else on the globe it's some crazy time instead. And since he didn't specify the time zone I get to pick between the two.

[Luziyca]

Since 12 pm is noon, 12 am must obviously be midnight.

Next question?

[Pope Joan]

On my phone, if I start at 1 AM and take the alarm function back one hour, it shows as 12 AM


So midnight must be 12 AM; i bow to the superior wisdom of phone maker science