Noon and midnight
shrdlu_junction
lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
Whilst the intent of the writer is usually apparent from the context,
this increasingly-common practice should be condemned. For one thing,
it is actually meaningless to say that noon is "12 p.m." meaning "12
hours post merīdiem", i.e "12 hours after noon"! In any case, it is
dangerously ambiguous.
IMHO, we should all use the 24-hour clock and write dates as YYYY-MM-
DD to avoid ambiguity between the British/Australian etc and American
formats, and because it's easier to computer-sort lists which have the
date in that format.
tony cooper
<rbes...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
>lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
>Whilst the intent of the writer is usually apparent from the context,
>this increasingly-common practice should be condemned. For one thing,
>it is actually meaningless to say that noon is "12 p.m." meaning "12
>hours post mer?diem", i.e "12 hours after noon"! In any case, it is
>dangerously ambiguous.
Hardly dangerous or ambiguous. You know exactly what "12:00 pm" and
"12 am" mean. There is no possibility that you will show up at the
wrong time for a lunch set for 12:00 pm or misunderstand when the
contest deadline is.
>
>IMHO, we should all use the 24-hour clock and write dates as YYYY-MM-
>DD to avoid ambiguity between the British/Australian etc and American
>formats, and because it's easier to computer-sort lists which have the
>date in that format.
There are better reasons than computer sorting. A good sorting
program can be set to sort first on any field, and a list that
contains 12-28-2009 can be set to sort first on the third field, then
the first, then the second.
The larger problem is what is meant by 3-12-2009 and all other dates
where the first two fields both contain numbers of no higher than 12.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<tony_co...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:31:16 -0800 (PST), shrdlu_junction
><rbes...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
>>It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
>>lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
>>Whilst the intent of the writer is usually apparent from the context,
>>this increasingly-common practice should be condemned. For one thing,
>>it is actually meaningless to say that noon is "12 p.m." meaning "12
>>hours post mer?diem", i.e "12 hours after noon"! In any case, it is
>>dangerously ambiguous.
>
>Hardly dangerous or ambiguous. You know exactly what "12:00 pm" and
>"12 am" mean. There is no possibility that you will show up at the
>wrong time for a lunch set for 12:00 pm or misunderstand when the
>contest deadline is.
>>
>>IMHO, we should all use the 24-hour clock and write dates as YYYY-MM-
>>DD to avoid ambiguity between the British/Australian etc and American
>>formats, and because it's easier to computer-sort lists which have the
>>date in that format.
>
>There are better reasons than computer sorting. A good sorting
>program can be set to sort first on any field, and a list that
>contains 12-28-2009 can be set to sort first on the third field, then
>the first, then the second.
Indeed. However, a program needs all the dates to be input in the same
format or at least in a mixture of unambiguous formats. One of my BILs
has written a book which will be published in 2010. The publisher's
website gives the publication date as 11/02/2010 (11 Feb 2010). The
Amazon website interpreted that as 2 Nov 2010. I attempted to notify
amazon.co.uk of the error. Unfortunately the web form did not have space
for comments, just URLs of the amazon page and a publisher's page.
Whoever compared the two saw no problem. Someone must have contacted
amazon in a more useful way because amazon now shows the publication
date correctly.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.english.usage)
mm
<rbes...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
>lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
>Whilst the intent of the writer is usually apparent from the context,
>this increasingly-common practice should be condemned. For one thing,
>it is actually meaningless to say that noon is "12 p.m." meaning "12
>hours post mer?diem", i.e "12 hours after noon"! In any case, it is
>dangerously ambiguous.
I disagree with Tony. I think many people don't know which is which.
I didn't until I was about 50 years old, when I finally decided to
"get with the program" an dlearn which was which. It turns out it is
simple and logical and does make sense, and is not meaningless.
Look at it this way: Only for one moment at precisely 12:00 is it
noon. The entire rest of the minute represent by 12:00PM is after
noon. So it's accurately labelled PM. And the opposite is true of
12:00 AM.
The only flaw is that at noon and midnight it says 12:00 instead of
0:00, but we can live with that. And if we start using times that
mean zero, we might all disappear.
>IMHO, we should all use the 24-hour clock and write dates as YYYY-MM-
Fat chance that will happen. :)
>DD to avoid ambiguity between the British/Australian etc and American
>formats, and because it's easier to computer-sort lists which have the
>date in that format.
--
Posters should say where they live, and for which area
they are asking questions. I was born and then lived in
Western Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis 7 years
Chicago 6 years
Brooklyn, NY 12 years
Baltimore 26 years
tony cooper
wrote:
>On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:31:16 -0800 (PST), shrdlu_junction
><rbes...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
>>It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
>>lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
>>Whilst the intent of the writer is usually apparent from the context,
>>this increasingly-common practice should be condemned. For one thing,
>>it is actually meaningless to say that noon is "12 p.m." meaning "12
>>hours post mer?diem", i.e "12 hours after noon"! In any case, it is
>>dangerously ambiguous.
>
>I disagree with Tony. I think many people don't know which is which.
>I didn't until I was about 50 years old, when I finally decided to
>"get with the program" an dlearn which was which. It turns out it is
>simple and logical and does make sense, and is not meaningless.
Do you mean to tell us that until you were 50 years old that you had
no idea what "Lunch will be served at 12:00 pm" meant? Did you think
that lunch would not be served, or that lunch would served at - say -
3:14 pm, or that lunch would be at midnight? The word "lunch" didn't
give you a clue?
I hope your mommy prepared filling breakfasts.
mm
<tony_co...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:32:58 -0500, mm <NOPSAM...@bigfoot.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:31:16 -0800 (PST), shrdlu_junction
>><rbes...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>>
>>>It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
>>>lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
>>>Whilst the intent of the writer is usually apparent from the context,
>>>this increasingly-common practice should be condemned. For one thing,
>>>it is actually meaningless to say that noon is "12 p.m." meaning "12
>>>hours post mer?diem", i.e "12 hours after noon"! In any case, it is
>>>dangerously ambiguous.
>>
>>I disagree with Tony. I think many people don't know which is which.
>>I didn't until I was about 50 years old, when I finally decided to
>>"get with the program" an dlearn which was which. It turns out it is
>>simple and logical and does make sense, and is not meaningless.
>
>Do you mean to tell us that until you were 50 years old that you had
>no idea what "Lunch will be served at 12:00 pm" meant? Did you think
No, it they mentioned lunch, I could get it. But there weren't
enough such references that I ever got straight, or that I remembered,
which was which. I suppose there were references in train schedules
too, but they would go in one eye and out the other.
>that lunch would not be served, or that lunch would served at - say -
>3:14 pm, or that lunch would be at midnight? The word "lunch" didn't
>give you a clue?
I don't think anyone ever said that to me. Sort of like some people
say "2PM in the afternoon", and some just say 2PM, my family wouldn't
say 12PM. They would say noon, and PM and AM were not specified.
Midnight was called midnight and it too didn't get an AM or PM.
I really wasn't exaggerating to make a point. I didn't know for sure,
which means I didn't know, which was which until I was about 50.
>I hope your mommy prepared filling breakfasts.
She made breakfast every morning, although it didnt' take long. Most
often it was Cheerios and milk. Often with a sliced banana.
Jan Hyde
were released on Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:31:16 -0800 (PST)
bearing the following fruit:
>It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
>lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
>Whilst the intent of the writer is usually apparent from the context,
>this increasingly-common practice should be condemned. For one thing,
>it is actually meaningless to say that noon is "12 p.m." meaning "12
>hours post mer?diem", i.e "12 hours after noon"! In any case, it is
>dangerously ambiguous.
>
>IMHO, we should all use the 24-hour clock and write dates as YYYY-MM-
>DD to avoid ambiguity between the British/Australian etc and American
>formats, and because it's easier to computer-sort lists which have the
>date in that format.
Dates are stored as numbers by computers. They are only
displayed in a particular format. Hence computers have no
problems sorting dates since they have no format at all.
--
Jan Hyde
Athel Cornish-Bowden
[ ... ]
> The larger problem is what is meant by 3-12-2009 and all other dates
> where the first two fields both contain numbers of no higher than 12.
In the past (I don't think it was still true on recent visits) the US
customs form to be filled in on entering the US required the date to be
in the format MM.DD.YY, whereas the immigration form that was handed
out at the same time required DD.MM.YY. Of course, there is a sort of
logic in this, as the majority of people needing the customs form are
US citizens, and those needing the other form are not. However, I bet
I'm not the only person who needed to ask for a second copy of one or
other form.
(Another thing I find endlessly confusing about US forms is that they
put the description telling you what goes in any given box at the top
of the box, and I never remember if the description is below the box it
applies to or at the top of its own box.)
--
athel
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
That may be largely the case today. It used not to be. There used to be
very many data files holding data, including dates, as character
strings. This was one of the problems that had to be dealt with in the
Y2K "search and remediation" work.
David Kaye
>It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
>lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
The problem is that it is correct by convention. By this I mean that
dictionaries and digital clocks both recognize 12:00pm as being noon, even
though it's technically wrong.
What's more, there is much confusion as to whether the minute after 11:59pm
Wednesday is 12:00am Wednesday or 12:00am Thursday. Technically it should be
Wednesday.
This has caused so much confusion that San Francisco's street cleaning zones
where cars have to be moved to make way for the mechanical sweepers, are
signed as "12:01am Thursday" to be sure that people know what day they should
move their cars.
David Kaye
>There are better reasons than computer sorting. A good sorting
>program can be set to sort first on any field, and a list that
>contains 12-28-2009 can be set to sort first on the third field, then
>the first, then the second.
It is hard to sort time when it is merely text (and special requirements are
not made for use of the date datatype).
For instance, this is how times are sorted if they are sorted as text:
1:00 am
1:30 am
11:59 am
12:00 am
12:30 am
12:00 pm
12:30 pm
What's more, think about this: In our usual counting method we count 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, etc. In time we count 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
In the days before the date datatype was used, it was a hassle to write a
time/date routine that functioned correctly.
Leslie Danks
[...]
> (Another thing I find endlessly confusing about US forms is that they
> put the description telling you what goes in any given box at the top
> of the box, and I never remember if the description is below the box it
> applies to or at the top of its own box.)
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0C59pI_ypQ>
That's you, that is.
--
Les (BrE)
David Kaye
>has written a book which will be published in 2010. The publisher's
>website gives the publication date as 11/02/2010 (11 Feb 2010). The
>Amazon website interpreted that as 2 Nov 2010. I attempted to notify
>amazon.co.uk of the error.
Thankfully, Microsoft's computer languages understand the date thing correctly
if the month is spelled out. For instance, in Visual Basic, the Format
function changes the date of "1 Nov 2009" to its correct American equivalent
(or any other equivalent you choose:
? format("1 nov 2009", "mm/dd/yyyy") (American style)
11/01/2009
? format("1 nov 2009", "yyyy/mm/dd") (Japanese style)
2009/11/01
? format("nov 1 2009", "mm/dd/yyyy") (American again)
11/01/2009
? format("nov 1 2009", "dd/mm/yyyy") (European style)
01/11/2009
So, there is no excuse to use the all-number format when you can use the
number/month name format. Computers (assuming they're running a decent
language such as VB or C++ or whatever) will understand.
David Kaye
>Dates are stored as numbers by computers. They are only
>displayed in a particular format. Hence computers have no
>problems sorting dates since they have no format at all.
They are now, but it wasn't always the case. In the case of Microsoft, date
and time are stored as a whole number and decimal respectively. For instance,
noon today will be (or already is, if you're in Europe) is 40176.5 (or
halfway through day 40176). The moment I'm writing this, 4:12am Pacific Time,
is stored as 40176.1755324074, making it super simple to find the difference
between any two dates or times. This is why the Y2K problem didn't affect any
computer running Microsoft's operating systems.
By the way, the integer date refers to midnight beginning December 31, 1899.
Any dates after that are positive, before that are negative. However, no
allowance is made for the dates dropped in the conversion from Julian to
Gregorian calendars in 1582 or 1752.
John Varela
Kaye) wrote:
> For instance, this is how times are sorted if they are sorted as text:
>
> 1:00 am
> 1:30 am
> 11:59 am
> 12:00 am
> 12:30 am
> 12:00 pm
> 12:30 pm
Shouldn't 12:00 pm come before 12:30 am?
--
John Varela
Trade NEWlamps for OLDlamps for email
David Kaye
>
>Shouldn't 12:00 pm come before 12:30 am?
Alphabetically, "a" comes before "p". What I'm getting at is that text sorts
are fraught with problems, the big culprit being that the lowest time
representation, "12:00 am" actually looks bigger than "1:00 am".
Patok
> shrdlu_junction <rbes...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
>> It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
>> lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
>
> The problem is that it is correct by convention. By this I mean that
> dictionaries and digital clocks both recognize 12:00pm as being noon, even
> though it's technically wrong.
>
> What's more, there is much confusion as to whether the minute after 11:59pm
> Wednesday is 12:00am Wednesday or 12:00am Thursday. Technically it should be
> Wednesday.
Are you sure? "Technically" stands for 'logically', no? And if so,
it should be Thursday. Since 'am' means before noon, and the noon it is
before is Thursday's, then 12:00am after 11:59pm Wednesday is 12:00am
Thursday.
> This has caused so much confusion that San Francisco's street cleaning zones
> where cars have to be moved to make way for the mechanical sweepers, are
> signed as "12:01am Thursday" to be sure that people know what day they should
> move their cars.
Very sensible decision.
--
You'd be crazy to e-mail me with the crazy. But leave the div alone.
Barb Knox
sfdavi...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) wrote:
> shrdlu_junction <rbes...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
> >It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
> >lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
>
> The problem is that it is correct by convention. By this I mean that
> dictionaries and digital clocks both recognize 12:00pm as being noon, even
> though it's technically wrong.
>
> What's more, there is much confusion as to whether the minute after 11:59pm
> Wednesday is 12:00am Wednesday or 12:00am Thursday.
> Technically it should be Wednesday.
Why? Isn't it just a matter of convention whether midnight finishes the
old day, or begins the new day? Twenty-four hour time lets you do
either -- 24:00 Wednesday = 00:00 Thursday.
Since 24:00 Wednesday / 00:00 Thursday is usually considered to be part
of "Wednesday night", that argues in favour of your preferred
convention; but even 02:00 Thursday is similarly considered to be part
of "Wednesday night".
OTOH, as one counts down to midnight on new year's eve, it marks the
beginning of the new year -- at midnight we shout "Happy new year!"
rather than "Goodbye old year!".
And as a previous poster noted, "hh:mm" can represent both that point in
time, and the entire interval of that minute. So even when midnight is
considered as 24:00 it lies mostly in the new day.
And, military time of "twenty-four hundred hours" is considered to be
part of the new day, just as "twenty-four oh one hours" is.
So on balance, from the examples I can think of, the usual convention is
that 24:00 / 12 midnight is part of the new day rather than the old.
> This has caused so much confusion that San Francisco's street cleaning zones
> where cars have to be moved to make way for the mechanical sweepers, are
> signed as "12:01am Thursday" to be sure that people know what day they should
> move their cars.
That's a very sensible solution.
--
---------------------------
| BBB b \ Barbara at LivingHistory stop co stop uk
| B B aa rrr b |
| BBB a a r bbb | Quidquid latine dictum sit,
| B B a a r b b | altum videtur.
| BBB aa a r bbb |
-----------------------------
David Kaye
> Are you sure? "Technically" stands for 'logically', no? And if so,
>it should be Thursday. Since 'am' means before noon, and the noon it is
>before is Thursday's, then 12:00am after 11:59pm Wednesday is 12:00am
>Thursday.
No, not at all. Logically 12 is larger than 11 and "12:00" would be the
instant before the date rolls over. That's a problem lots of people have,
which is why the street signs were changed for street cleaning. Now, nobody
is confused.
Hatunen
When I used to be on Unix sytems they had a commane, something
like "cal" for calendar, and if you did "cal 9 1752" you got a
very short September calendar page with a bunch of dates missing
in the middle of the month.
--
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
Hatunen
Kaye) wrote:
>shrdlu_junction <rbes...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
>>It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
>>lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
>
>The problem is that it is correct by convention. By this I mean that
>dictionaries and digital clocks both recognize 12:00pm as being noon, even
>though it's technically wrong.
I ahve finally managed to memorize that on my video recorders
midnight is 12:00 AM. Sometimes I do forget to change the date to
the next day, though.
David Kaye
>When I used to be on Unix sytems they had a commane, something
>like "cal" for calendar, and if you did "cal 9 1752" you got a
>very short September calendar page with a bunch of dates missing
>in the middle of the month.
Yeah, I remember cal. It was a hoot showing it to people.
Hatunen
wrote:
>In article <hhcqg4$v13$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> sfdavi...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) wrote:
>
>> shrdlu_junction <rbes...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>>
>> >It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
>> >lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
>>
>> The problem is that it is correct by convention. By this I mean that
>> dictionaries and digital clocks both recognize 12:00pm as being noon, even
>> though it's technically wrong.
>>
>> What's more, there is much confusion as to whether the minute after 11:59pm
>> Wednesday is 12:00am Wednesday or 12:00am Thursday.
>
>> Technically it should be Wednesday.
>
>Why? Isn't it just a matter of convention whether midnight finishes the
>old day, or begins the new day? Twenty-four hour time lets you do
>either -- 24:00 Wednesday = 00:00 Thursday.
>
>Since 24:00 Wednesday / 00:00 Thursday is usually considered to be part
>of "Wednesday night", that argues in favour of your preferred
>convention; but even 02:00 Thursday is similarly considered to be part
>of "Wednesday night".
>
>OTOH, as one counts down to midnight on new year's eve, it marks the
>beginning of the new year -- at midnight we shout "Happy new year!"
>rather than "Goodbye old year!".
>
>And as a previous poster noted, "hh:mm" can represent both that point in
>time, and the entire interval of that minute. So even when midnight is
>considered as 24:00 it lies mostly in the new day.
Interval of what minute? 11:59:30 to 12:00:30?
>And, military time of "twenty-four hundred hours" is considered to be
>part of the new day, just as "twenty-four oh one hours" is.
On a 24 hour clock 24:00 is the end of day X; 00:00 is the
beginning of day X+1. There's a problem here with boundedness,
shrdlu_junction
> In article <hhcqg4$v1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> sfdavidka...@yahoo.com (David Kaye) wrote:
>
> And, military time of "twenty-four hundred hours" is considered to be
> part of the new day, just as "twenty-four oh one hours" is.
>
> So on balance, from the examples I can think of, the usual convention is
> that 24:00 / 12 midnight is part of the new day rather than the old.
I think you'll find that the military never use "24:00" or "00:00" .
If you were granted a day's leave it might be from 00:01 Wednesday to
23:59 Wednesday. Which means you've been robbed of two minutes!
Way back in 1970, I was issued with a railway ticket valid from "12:01
am on 13th January to 11:59 pm on 14th January"
In transport timetables, a train which arrives at midnight will be
shown as arriving at 24:00 on the "old" day, whereas one that departs
at midnight will be shown as departing at 00:00 on the "new" day.
Gary Eickmeier
"Hatunen" <hat...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:l8tkj5te9a498qd60...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:51:34 GMT, sfdavi...@yahoo.com (David
> Kaye) wrote:
>
>>shrdlu_junction <rbes...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>>
>>>It annoys me (and, no doubt, many others) to hear people say "the
>>>lunch will begin at 12:00 pm" or "the contest closes at 12:00 am".
>>
>>The problem is that it is correct by convention. By this I mean that
>>dictionaries and digital clocks both recognize 12:00pm as being noon, even
>>though it's technically wrong.
It sure would have been helpful if they had called the famous Gary Cooper
movie "High 12PM" instead of "High Noon." Not quite as dramatic, but highly
instructive...
Gary Eickmeier
Athel Cornish-Bowden
I enjoyed the video, but I didn't understand your point, exactly.
--
athel
Leslie Danks
The allusion is to your writing each of your answers in the box in front
of the one it's supposed to go into--in other words, before it's been
asked. In the sketch, Ronnie Barker always answers the question before
last. This is the opposite way round to your situation, but near enough
(I thought) for a newsgroup obsessed with chirality.
--
Les (BrE)
John Varela
Never mind the a & p, doesn't 12:00 sort before 12:30?
David Kaye
>Never mind the a & p, doesn't 12:00 sort before 12:30?
>
Uh, yes.