NationStates

Recently, someone I know lost a point on a test because they thought that 12am was noon and the teacher thought 12am was midnight... or the other way around. I can't remember...

I looked it up on Google and found even more conflicting arguments.
However, I found that most places were advocating just saying "12 noon" or "12 midnight", and I think this is clearer.
I also think that using a 24hr clock instead of am and pm would work, although I would take while to get used to.

Anyway, what do you think NS? Is 12am noon or midnight or do you have another solution?

EDIT:Poll now has 2 answer choices if you use a 24hr clock but also want to say if 12am is noon or midnight. Please choose one of the first 2 option and one of the second 2 options.
EDIT 2: I messed up the poll when I thought I was fixing it, which messed up some of the first few answers. I will be resetting the poll with clearer options. Please choose one of the 2 first options and any of the other 2 statements you agree with. Sorry for the confusion.

I use 24 hour clock, so fight me

Noon, but I prefer to use the 24 hour format.

12am is midnight.
Although I am partial to using the 12-hour format, I personally prefer using the 24-hour format, for reasons.

Quite an unusual topic, but I will take it over the politics.

I will say 12 PM is noon...

11.59 PM - before midnight
12.00 AM - midnight
12.01 AM - past midnight

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11.59 AM - before noon
12.00 PM - It's High Nooooon.
12.01 PM - past noon.

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But again, I use 24-hours so yeah, it's much easier for me. With the 24-hours system, you don't have to worry about setting your clock 12 hours off.

"12 midnight", easy. Though, I'm used to 24 hours clock, anyway, and for me, 'tomorrow' is after I've slept.

I use the 24 hour clock (military time)

But 12pm is noon

Lillorainen wrote:"12 midnight", easy. Though, I'm used to 24 hours clock, anyway, and for me, 'tomorrow' is after I've slept.

So what about when you wake up at, say, 11:47pm?

-Astoria wrote:

Lillorainen wrote:"12 midnight", easy. Though, I'm used to 24 hours clock, anyway, and for me, 'tomorrow' is after I've slept.

So what about when you wake up at, say, 11:47pm?

I'm usually asked what happens when I stay awake the entire night - so this is a good, new question! ^^
If I wake up before midnight, which practically never happens, I go into bed again.

Time is an illusion. 12-hour time doubly so.

Ifreann wrote:Time is an illusion. 12-hour time doubly so.

No, you’re an illusion!

11:59 PM switches to AM at 12:00.

11:59 AM switches to PM at 12:00.

Lots of people are saying that 12 is noon and they use a 24 hour clock, so I edited the poll to allow for 2 answer choices.

Title also said "12pm" while everything else said "12am" oops.... Fixed.

12pm is certainly noon.

Have you never looked at a 12-hour digital clock? Your PC at noon/midnight? 12AM is midnight and 12PM is noon.

Valrifell wrote:Have you never looked at a 12-hour digital clock? Your PC at noon/midnight? 12AM is midnight and 12PM is noon.

Most people use the 24hour format nowadays, so do not see that.
And quite a few are from countries where am/pm were never used in the first place. They just added "in the morning" and such when speaking.

So I looked more into it at 12:00:00 (zeros ad infinitum) doesn't actually have a pm/am distinction, but since the value of time where that applies is so small, we just say that 12 noon is 12PM and 12 midnight is 12AM.

Oh, is it time to feed the Gremlins?

Jokes aside, 12 AM is midnight, and 12 PM is noon.

The AM and PM designations are oriented around noon. Noon itself is neither ante meridiem (AM) nor post meridiem (PM), it's just noon. If you keep that in mind, midnight falls into place easily as an AM time. Many people suffer from confusion at noon and midnight.

The Super Fork wrote:I also think that using a 24hr clock instead of am and pm would work, although I would take while to get used to.

It's like this problem was solved long ago already. Yes, there's a period of time where you'll be frantically adding or subtracting 12, but it's not that long. I've noticed that I can see "21:00" on my phone and immediately think "9 PM," but just as quickly see "4 PM" somewhere and instantly think "16:00."

It's just a muscle memory thing, like anything else.

We should use a 24hr clock (military time)

"Military time" is mostly a North American thing. In most of the rest of the civilized world, the 24 hours format is just a completely normal part of civil timekeeping, especially where it's considered important to be more formal and/or precise. But I'm in NA, so people see the clock on my phone, and want to know how long I served. I'm not a veteran, though. I can just count past 12.

12am is midnight and never noon.

I was really confused at first because I read the OP as the opposite question. That is, if you read Farn's link, it turns out (despite my never) some confusion about whether noon is 12 am or midnight since logically speaking am and pm don't make sense at the times noon and midnight. That is the OP's question, incidentally. The way I read it, initially, was that it seems if people want to know whether to call 00:00 noon or midnight, but in the latter we know that 11:59 am is the time before noon and we want to know if we should stick am or pm on the 12:00 following it.

Using logic to assign am and pm to numbers is daft since no-one bothers with the bloody meaning of am and pm anyway. Stick to common sense, hence "never". AM means morning. PM means afternoon/evening. Ante-meridian? Doesn't and shouldn't have any part to play here. 12pm is 12:00 is the afternoon (nearly). 12am is 00:00 is the wee hours, i.e. morning.

Speaking of which, using 24 hour time does not get rid of the question of noon or midnight just that last problem about whether we should use am/pm to refer to noon/midnight.

Free Arabian Nation wrote:I use 24 hour clock, so fight me

Yup.
Chad 24 hour clock > virgin AM/PM crap.

Midnight

Ifreann wrote:Time is an illusion. 12-hour time doubly so.

No, everyone knows time is a 4 sided cube.

“Ignorance of 4 day harmonic cubic nature indicts humans as unfit to live on earth!”

Pax Nerdvana wrote:Oh, is it time to feed the Gremlins?

Jokes aside, 12 AM is midnight, and 12 PM is noon.

So when can you feed the Gremlins again? How long after midnight?

Also chicken has water content, why do they not multiply from touching it?
What about atmospheric moisture?

Do not dare tell me it was just a movie.