Most of us will have been made aware from a young years that “ am ” and “ pm ” refer to the first half and the second one-half of the day , or sunrise and afternoon / even – but what do those letters actually stand for ?
Take a look at Latin
Some people might call back Latin is a dead oral communication , but take a agile flavor around and its influence is everywhere , include in how we describe time . “ am”stands forthe Latin phraseante meridiem , which read to English means “ before noon ” . On the other mitt ( well , same hand if you ’re looking at a 12 - time of day clock ) , “ Prime Minister ” digest forpost meridiem , meaning “ after noon ” .
If you fancy scald out a morsel of pedantry the next prison term you hear someone say 12 am or 12 pm , this stand for that you’re able to tell them that doing so is n’t technically right – 12 pm ca n’t be after midday because it ’s , well , midday . Royal Museums Greenwich recommends sticking to 12 noon or 12 midnight .
All that being said , people might find you a flake irritating if you come out pointing this out at every chance .
To punctuate or not to punctuate
According to theChicago Manual of Style , there are a sum of six ways to write abbreviateante meridiemandpost meridiem : all caps with periods , all caps without period , little caps with periods , pocket-sized ceiling without periods , lowercase with periods , and lowercase without periods .
For a tenacious time , the use of capital letters with the inclusion of periods was the preferable option for many formal fashion guides , including Chicago . Though that might remain in some academic circumstance or publication menage , for example , any which way you want to write it is loosely believe satisfactory nowadays – just be consistent with what you utilise .
The less confusing way
If there are concerns about incidentally turn up at the airport at 4 pm when your flight was really at 4 am ( a time worth miss a flight for , to be just ) , then you might just want to change over to using the 24 - hr system .
Though your pal might gargle you for dissemble to be in the war machine , it can be a much less perplexing approaching . For good example , instead of midnight being 12 am , it but becomes 00:00 , which make up a lot of signified consider it ’s the start of the day .
Where the soil becomes slimly more unfamiliar is after 1 pm , which or else becomes 13:00 , and so on until midnight , which in reality still has its trouble – should it be 00:00 or 24:00 ? We ’ll leave that one up to you to debate .
All “ explainer ” article are confirmed byfact checkersto be right at fourth dimension of publishing . Text , images , and links may be edited , removed , or added toat a ulterior engagement to keep data current .
