12am or 12pm?

Sorry this was in an office with computers and not one of you had the Iq to just check it on the clock in the bottom right of the screen?

12am is midnight 12pm is midday.

I don't see how checking the computer clock would have been much assistance unless:

1) They were using a clock which explicitly states am or pm (mine doesn't by default)
2) The time was 12:00

Obviously they could have started faffing around with settings to try and change the timemask to the correct format and then set the time to 12:00, but that would have been a bit of a faff and may even have been blocked depending on how locked down their workstation security is.
 
But thats wrong.

You're talking about midday being a point, and 12.00.01 being pm, but that isn't 12pm.

12pm is also a point, all time is a point if you zoom in enough. There is no argument about it, its fact - 12pm/am do not exist, and would only exist as an inaccurate measure of a time before or after midday. Its an indisputable fact. Much easier to say noon or midnight anyhow...


Noon is accurately 12:00:00 and anything after that is pm, so 12pm for all intents and purposes is a more practical reference as it refers to a period of time depending on the context of the observer. 12:00:01 is 12pm and will remain so until 12:01:00 when it becomes 12:01pm, to any practical use.

The 12 hour clock denotes 12noon as pm, and thus in answer to the OP 12am is midnight and 12pm is midday. Not the opposite as he suggested.
 
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This... weird, I've never come across this before. I retract my previous sentiment, turns out official sources say I'm wrong, but I think I'll continue to say it my way regardless. At least now I won't be telling people with iron-clad belief in my own verity that I'm right and they're wrong :p.

Although from their description, I think I'm still leaning towards the "dimensionless point" way of thinking - that instant may well be 12 noon, but a fraction of time after that it's 12pm :p
 
Noon is accurately 12:00:00 and anything after that is pm, so 12pm for all intents and purposes is a more practical reference as it refers to a period of time depending on the context of the observer. 12:00:01 is 12pm and will remain so until 12:01:00 when it becomes 12:01pm, to any practical use.

The 12 hour clock denotes 12noon as pm, and thus in answer to the OP 12am is midnight and 12pm is midday. Not the opposite as he suggested.

in terms of rounding to the nearest hour, you are right. In terms of accuracy (and being correct) you are wrong, which i guess you concede.

People saying noon is a dimensionless point don't seem to grasp that to a degree so is 12.00.01, 12.00.02 when taken in isolation.

I guess what i'm trying to say is that common usage uses 12pm for noon, but its black and white, and 12pm is only referring to time rounded down from JUST after noon, to 12.00 for convenience sake. In the OP it was referring to when cover ended, and the cover would have ended at 12pm. so are we saying that actually the cover ended at 12.01-12.29, and not noon? (its a strained and bit silly point, but you get the jist).
 
ante meridiem (a.m., English: "before midday") and post meridiem (p.m., English: "after midday")

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ante_Meridiem

I think of it like this, what is 12:01 am closer to?

Most here are potential morons.
if p.m is after midday then its after midday and if a.m if before midday then thats it
There is no 12.00pm or 12.00am who ever discovered the 12hr clock is a moron and so are those who use it. The 24hr clock is the correct one period
 
in terms of rounding to the nearest hour, you are right. In terms of accuracy (and being correct) you are wrong, which i guess you concede.

It's not a matter of rounding to the nearest hour, it's recognising that 12 PM/midday/noon has no span of time in itself, it's just a switching point. It could be rounding to the nearest picosecond and it'd still be the same concept - there is absolutely no stretch of time, in either partitioned or continuous flow, which can be described as exactly 12PM/noon/midday. Are you familiar with Zeno's paradoxes? That is, more familiar than a quick copy/paste into google or wikipedia for a response?

People saying noon is a dimensionless point don't seem to grasp that to a degree so is 12.00.01, 12.00.02 when taken in isolation.

Any instant of time is a dimensionless point, but that's irrelevant - the only distinctions significant to this discussion are the transitional periods at midday and midnight.

I guess what i'm trying to say is that common usage uses 12pm for noon, but its black and white, and 12pm is only referring to time rounded down from JUST after noon, to 12.00 for convenience sake. In the OP it was referring to when cover ended, and the cover would have ended at 12pm. so are we saying that actually the cover ended at 12.01-12.29, and not noon? (its a strained and bit silly point, but you get the jist).

I don't understand this last section.

Edit: It's also worth clarifying, apparently, that when people say "12 PM" or "12 AM" they're not talking about these dimensionless transition points, but the time period they define. If somebody said to you "meet at 12 PM", you'd know straight away that they aren't expecting you to show up at midnight. There's really no need to discount the use of AM and PM when referring to the midway points, other than the same reasoning behind dropping apostrophes from street names and landmarks - people seem to get confused, so we'll smear it all into bright, clearly defined colours so they can stop worrying their pretty little heads about it and go back to spending money.

Also, bagsjoni, nice of you to state your opinion so boldly, but if you dump on a thread with little more than a poorly-formatted rehash of opinions mentioned earlier and supplement it with unnecessary insults rather than even vague factual basis, it makes you look like a cretin.
 
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To lighten the mood, here's what I'm having 30 minutes after midday today. A Sizzling sweet Chilli Pizza from Pizza Hut :D

Just typing that out made my mouth water. Especially considering I've not had any food for 13 hours due to feeling poo.

Best 12:00 ever!
 
The dictionary definition of AM and PM is largely irrelevant. If you want to set your alarm for Midday or Midnight you need to know if it's AM or PM since 12hour clocks rightly or wrongly display it as such.
 
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