>> >> It seems intuitively obvious to me that between 11:59 Ante-Meridiem and >> >> 12:01 Post-Meridiem must lie 12:00 Meridiem. (Though 12:00:01 - one >> >> second later - would be Post-Meridiem again.)
In my interpretation of this part of the world, it's never exactly noon nor exactly midnight: "12:00" is merely a shorthand to refer to "the interval between 12:00 and 12:01", hence "12:00 AM" is one minute before "12:01 AM" and not one minute after "11:59 AM". But of course it's just a convention and the above is just the reasoning I use to remember the existing convention. Stefan