On Wed 26 Jun 2024 at 12:50:32 (-0400), Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 11:25:38 -0500, John Hasler wrote:
> > I wrote:
> > > 12 Noon and 12 Midnight works.
> >
> > David Wright wrote:
> > > Except that The Wanderer's "strictly correct" version, M for noon,
> > > is out there in some pre-2008 documents.
> >
> > If you use M for noon you should use either AM or PM for midnight.
That was the case in 1984¹, when they used PM, which agrees with the
expression "midnight on Saturday", and with the terminology of
deadlines, both of which assume that midnight belongs to the end
of the day. But it's still somewhat arbitrary.
By the 2000 edition, they decided to eliminate M in favour of 12 AM,
presumably because of 12 PM being already established for midnight.
Then, in the 2008 edition, they swapped AM and PM around, without
so much as a footnote.
> Or... you could STOP confusing yourself and everyone around you, and
> use the correct, standard notation.
>
> 12:00 AM = Midnight
> 12:00 PM = Noon
>
> Like it or not, this is what people agreed on, decades or centuries ago.
> If you use this, you will be understood. If you make up your own crazy
> crap, you will not be. And then you risk polluting your mind with your
> made-up crap to the point where you can no longer remember what the
> correct versions are.
I don't think that adopting AM/PM at 12 o'clock is some centuries-old
tradition, with such a recent volte-face. The best idea is just to
avoid them both. As the Chicago Manual of Style online FAQ says:
"Q. To me, 12:00 is either noon or midnight, never a.m. or p.m.
I keep seeing copy that says “before 12 p.m.” and I can’t
convince the copywriters that this is confusing. Can you cite any
rule that would clarify this once and for all?
"A. Yes. Please see CMOS 9.38: “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.”
I was taught that at school in the 1950s. It seems it got forgotten.
¹ various editions of US Government Printing Office Style Manual.
Cheers,
David.
