Is Midnight 12pm Or 12am? | Notes And Queries | .uk

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NOOKS AND CRANNIESIs midnight 12pm or 12am?

  • EITHER, since it is both 12 hours before and after noon. The real question is: what is mid-day?

    John Hawthorne, Crawley, W Sussex.

  • MIDNIGHT is 12pm. One must recognise the difference between points in time and periods of time. Midnight is the zero point in time when we start to build up 24 one-hour periods of time to make up a new day. So midnight is the point 0am. After a period of one hour we reach the point in time called 1am, and after 12 periods of one hour we reach the point called noon. At noon the 13th one-hour period starts, ending at point 1pm. This process continues up to the point 11pm when the 24th period of one hour starts. This period ends in the middle of the night, 12 hours after noon at the point midnight or 12pm.

    Geoff Berriman, Sandal, Wakefield.

  • WHEN I was in the RAF 50 years ago this problem was solved by defining it out of existence. Working on the 24-hour clock meant that there was no difficulty with midday - 1200 hours - but the Air Force could not countenance 0000 hours for midnight. We were instructed that the Air Force day began at 0001 hours and ended at 2359 hours. The two minutes between were ours to use as we liked.

    James Eedle, Black Hill, Victoria, Australia.

  • AS IS clear from consideration of the literal meanings of am and pm, noon is 12m, while 12am and 12pm have equal claims on midnight. We tend to avoid 12m nowadays from fear that someone may think m stands for midnight, but in avoiding this confusion we have been thrown into worse confusion by trying to determine which of 12am and 12pm to assign to noon and midnight.

    Ron Knight Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.

  • EXACTLY one hour after 11 Post Meridiem comes 12 Post Meridiem. As it is dark then, I've always supposed it is midnight.

    Denis Buckley, Darwin, Australia.

  • NEITHER, in the strict meaning of the words. But one minute after midnight (12.01) is unquestionably am. Hence for consistent usage, 12am must mean midnight.

    Adrian Pollock, Yardley, Pennsylvania.

  • GEOFF BERRIMAN may be technically correct (which doesn't mean I'm agreeing with his strange theory), but in the real world he is wrong. Regardless of thoughts about points in time, 12.01, just after midnight is most definitely, and unarguably 12.01am. 12.01 just after noon is similarly 12.01pm. Also, an event that starts at 11.00pm and goes on until 11.01am has lasted over 12 hours, whereas an event that starts at 11.00pm and goes on until 11.01pm has lasted just one minute. This means that a meeting that starts at 12.00pm and goes on until 12.01pm must have lasted one minute (the alternative would give computer systems worldwide a bigger problem than the millennium bug). Therefore, 12.00pm must be at noon. QED. (Try booking some meetings, lunches etc at 12.00am and see the result.)

    Phil Benjamin, Enfield, Middx.

  • WHEN I was in the RAF 50 years ago, this problem was solved by defining it out of existence. Working on the 24-hour clock meant that there was no difficulty with midday1200 hours - but the Air Force could not countenance 0000 hours for midnight. We were instructed that the Air Force day began at 0001 hours and ended at 2359 hours. The two minutes between were ours to use as we liked.

    James Eedle, Black Hill, Victoria, Australia.

  • I am appaled at the rubbish I have read on this subject. There is no genuine confusion nor ambiguity only a self-made one. As the day begins at midnight, midnight must be 12am. The moment of noon is in the first second, consequently minute and hour of the afternoon therefore noon must be 12pm. It is poppycock to say that 12am and 12pm do not exist by considering the moments of noon and midnight within their own right - once the measures they belong to become clear, any supposed confusion vanishes.

    Mr Graham J Mayer, Epsom England

  • Further to my previous comments, I am DISGUSTED at the ignorant statements that midnight has equal claims on AM and PM - HOW CAN MIDNIGHT BE PM OF A DAY TO WHICH IT DOES NOT BELONG - it MUST be 12am as it clearly belongs to a NEW day - the fact that the hour changes from ll.59pm (one minute before midnight) to 12.00 proves that the new hour must be either still in the same day or the new day - it MUST be the first hour of the new day, the previous day finishing at 11.59pm. in hour/minute language and ll.59.59pm in hour/minute/second language.

    Mr Graham James Mayer, Epsom England

  • Further to my previous comments, I am DISGUSTED at the ignorant statements that midnight has equal claims on AM and PM - HOW CAN MIDNIGHT BE PM OF A DAY TO WHICH IT DOES NOT BELONG - it MUST be 12am as it clearly belongs to a NEW day - the fact that the hour changes from ll.59pm (one minute before midnight) to 12.00 proves that the new hour must be either still in the same day or the new day - it MUST be the first hour of the new day, the previous day finishing at 11.59pm. In hour/minute language and ll.59.59pm in hour/minute/second language.

    Mr Graham James Mayer, Epsom, England

  • What a load of nonsense! 12am and 12pm are both mathmatically and logically inadmissable. 12 noon and 12 midnight are the only true values. However, for those who must use this notation, take a look at your digital clock dislay (12hr). When it changes to 12 noon it shows 12pm! And at midnight 12am! So for you freaks that must use an ambiguous notation surely this is the very thing. ie 12pm = noon 12am = midnight

    Bob Fisher, Rainham, Kent

  • 12am and 12pm are both incorrect. Neither should be used. You should really pay attention to the abbreviation. "a.m." means "ante meridiem" which means "before midday" and p.m. means "post meridiem", which means "after midday". Consequently to use am/pm to refer to midday, (12noon) is simply wrong (and similarly midnight). The correct terms are 12 noon and 12 midnight, with times in between using am/pm.

    Colin Jones, Aberdeen, Scotland

  • If midnight is 12am ('ANTE'= before 'MERIDIEM'= noon), then it follows logically that 1 hour later should be 11am, 2 hours later should be 10am, etc. Our current 11am would be 1am, closely followed by noon which would be 0am or 0pm (either - think 'noon' as in 'none'*). 1pm, 2pm, etc would be as now. Midnight would be 12am or 12pm (either). By counting forwards then backwards in time, we might stop getting older. *Actually 'noon' comes from 'nine' see www.etymonline.com :-D

    Phil Swallow, Lydbrook UK

  • 12:00 is noon 24:00 is midnight

    John henschel, Surrey B.C. Canada

  • WELL DONE! Absolutely the correct answer from Colin Jones, Aberdeen, Scotland. Why are poeple SO LAZY or ignorant that they need to avoid the use of 'noon or midday' and 'midnight' as CLEAR descriptions of time. Midnight needing to be qualified further as the end or beginning of a particular day. Worldwide adoption of 00.00 and 24.00 would help enormously!

    Stanley Sutcliffe, Halifax United Kingdom

  • If we use the military time as our basis for this argument and for the sake of argument say that 2400 is midnight then we can simply answer this question using common sense math skills. Do we start counting at 12 or 24? No we don't. Do we believe that there is actually a time known as 00:00:00. Most people I know would say that this time does not exist or that doomsday is here if we were on that moment. Therefore the day begins with 00:00:01 (where we naturally start counting from). Using this argument I believe 12 noon to be 12am as it is the end of the morning. 12 midnight is 12pm or the end of the evening. If we take this to be true then we can see that military time as it is known uses 2400 because it is the end of that day and a full 24 hours otherwise why don't all of our clocks say 00:00:00.

    Michael Vandiver, Leeds, AL USA

  • Let's look at a nasty example. My bank sent me a message this week asking me to pay in funds by 12pm on 12th June to avoid charges. I paid in at 3.07pm on 12th June and still got a charge because they say 3.07 pm is after 12pm! I called them and they have waived the charge, but still insist that 12pm is midday.

    John Griffiths, Norwich Norfolk

  • Both 12am and 12pm are precise moments of time. 12am is the exact moment the 12th hour of the morning finishes (am), and similarly for pm. Therefor 12am is midday and pm would start straight after. The confusion has started since the invention of the digital clock.

    David Sulivan, Carshalton, Surrey