Random Thoughts

[mgk920]

I've never seen a digital clock always flashing 12:00. When I see a clock flash after a power outage, time runs normally even though it begins at 12:00, so if it's flashing at 1:14, I know the power came back on an hour and 14 minutes ago.

Is this 12 am or 12 pm?

12 AM, if the device even makes the distinction.

That is why the railroads converted to using 24h clocks for train dispatching in the late 1980s.  For them, ambiguity between am and pm is a critical life-safety issue.  I have been using 24h clocks where possible in my own life to prevent embarrassing (and possibly expensive) am v pm mix-ups and would love to see other businesses to do likewise (ie, placing a large pizza catering order for 11:30 (as in a half hour before midnight) delivery and getting it at 11:30 (as in a half hour before noon)).

Mike

[tmoore952]

Then my question becomes --

What is 12 am - midnight or noon? I know in the military it is 0000.

What is 12 pm -- midnight or noon? I know in the military it is 1200.

Is there a standard? (meaning in the non-military and non 24-hour world, which obviously still exists)

I would say 12 am is midnight and 12 pm is noon.
In a perfect world, IMO you wouldn't use 12 am or 12 pm at all --- rather you would use midnight or noon.

But I know, as well as anyone, that some systems probably can only say 12 am or 12 pm. So perhaps times like that are best avoided?

[dlsterner]

Then my question becomes --

What is 12 am - midnight or noon? I know in the military it is 0000.

What is 12 pm -- midnight or noon? I know in the military it is 1200.

Is there a standard? (meaning in the non-military and non 24-hour world, which obviously still exists)

I would say 12 am is midnight and 12 pm is noon.
In a perfect world, IMO you wouldn't use 12 am or 12 pm at all --- rather you would use midnight or noon.

But I know, as well as anyone, that some systems probably can only say 12 am or 12 pm. So perhaps times like that are best avoided?

Personally I've considered 12:00 am to be midnight, using the reasoning that 12:00:01 am would definitely be one second past midnight.  To avoid ambiguity, I would usually use the words "midnight" or "noon" instead.

I also remember a high school band trip (which involved overnight bus travel) having an itinerary which specified 11:59pm (rather than 12:00am) for a departure time, to avoid this problem.  All other times on the itinerary used "round" numbers for times - xx:00 or xx:30.

[kkt]

I've never seen a digital clock always flashing 12:00. When I see a clock flash after a power outage, time runs normally even though it begins at 12:00, so if it's flashing at 1:14, I know the power came back on an hour and 14 minutes ago.

Is this 12 am or 12 pm?

12 AM, if the device even makes the distinction.

That is why the railroads converted to using 24h clocks for train dispatching in the late 1980s.  For them, ambiguity between am and pm is a critical life-safety issue.  I have been using 24h clocks where possible in my own life to prevent embarrassing (and possibly expensive) am v pm mix-ups and would love to see other businesses to do likewise (ie, placing a large pizza catering order for 11:30 (as in a half hour before midnight) delivery and getting it at 11:30 (as in a half hour before noon)).

Mike

Do you perhaps mean "late 1880s"?

I would say 12 am is midnight and 12 pm is noon.
In a perfect world, IMO you wouldn't use 12 am or 12 pm at all --- rather you would use midnight or noon.

Strictly speaking, AM and PM are incorrect with 12.  AM stands for ante meridiem. PM stands for post meridiem.  Noon and midnight are exactly on the meridian, neither before it nor after it.  So it is better to say midnight or noon, both for clear understanding and to be correct.

[mgk920]

I meant 'late 1980s'.  Prior to then they generally used the form '10:01am' or '3:07pm'.   Railroads also prohibit the use of 'even hours' (ie, '0659' is to be followed by '0701') in train dispatching.

Mike

[hotdogPi]

Why do you keep deleting and reposting your message rather than just editing it? I've gotten the "new" message indicator four times now.

[jeffandnicole]

I've never seen a digital clock always flashing 12:00. When I see a clock flash after a power outage, time runs normally even though it begins at 12:00, so if it's flashing at 1:14, I know the power came back on an hour and 14 minutes ago.

Is this 12 am or 12 pm?

12 AM, if the device even makes the distinction.

That is why the railroads converted to using 24h clocks for train dispatching in the late 1980s.  For them, ambiguity between am and pm is a critical life-safety issue.  I have been using 24h clocks where possible in my own life to prevent embarrassing (and possibly expensive) am v pm mix-ups and would love to see other businesses to do likewise (ie, placing a large pizza catering order for 11:30 (as in a half hour before midnight) delivery and getting it at 11:30 (as in a half hour before noon)).

Mike

Do you perhaps mean "late 1880s"?

I would say 12 am is midnight and 12 pm is noon.
In a perfect world, IMO you wouldn't use 12 am or 12 pm at all --- rather you would use midnight or noon.

Strictly speaking, AM and PM are incorrect with 12.  AM stands for ante meridiem. PM stands for post meridiem.  Noon and midnight are exactly on the meridian, neither before it nor after it.  So it is better to say midnight or noon, both for clear understanding and to be correct.

It's long been established that 12am = midnight, and 12pm = noon. 

If a store's hours were from 9am to 12am, they're probably not open 3 hours.  If a bar opens from 12pm to 2am, they're probably not open for 2 hours.  Unless there's a certain context that makes it a little unclear (a shift beginning at 12:00 at a 24 hour business and the employee is known for working both day and night shifts), 12am or 12pm are often clear enough to avoid any misunderstanding.

I had an elementary teacher once tell us that noon is 12am; 12:01 is pm.  I wanted to be the smartass to say what about the time between 12:00 and 12:01, but I didn't want to be that guy.  I was already laughed at enough at that age.

[webny99]

Why do you keep deleting and reposting your message rather than just editing it? I've gotten the "new" message indicator four times now.

It could have been four quick edits. I believe the "new" popup shows up for edits to the most recent post, but the "last edited by" doesn't appear for edits made during the first 60-90 seconds after posting.

[hotdogPi]

Why do you keep deleting and reposting your message rather than just editing it? I've gotten the "new" message indicator four times now.

It could have been four quick edits. I believe the "new" popup shows up for edits to the most recent post, but the "last edited by" doesn't appear for edits made during the first 60-90 seconds after posting.

Editing a post doesn't cause it to reappear on "recent unread topics", though. This did.

[1995hoo]

I've never seen a digital clock always flashing 12:00. When I see a clock flash after a power outage, time runs normally even though it begins at 12:00, so if it's flashing at 1:14, I know the power came back on an hour and 14 minutes ago.

Is this 12 am or 12 pm?

12 AM, if the device even makes the distinction.

That is why the railroads converted to using 24h clocks for train dispatching in the late 1980s.  For them, ambiguity between am and pm is a critical life-safety issue.  I have been using 24h clocks where possible in my own life to prevent embarrassing (and possibly expensive) am v pm mix-ups and would love to see other businesses to do likewise (ie, placing a large pizza catering order for 11:30 (as in a half hour before midnight) delivery and getting it at 11:30 (as in a half hour before noon)).

Mike

Heh. This post prompted me to remember an incident during my first year of college some 33 years ago when my RA asked if I could help him with his resume because my PC ran Windows 3.11 and I had a copy of WordPerfect for Windows, so he could see what it looked like as we revised it. Everyone else on the hall, as well as the university's computer labs, all had only DOS versions. We agreed we would do this at "10 o'clock." Problem: He meant AM, I assumed he meant PM. (I had a class at 10 AM, as did almost everyone else in our hall, so I figured no way did he mean AM.)

Weird how a random forum post can prompt a memory you hadn't thought of in years.

I've had most of my devices set to a 24-hour clock for a long time because when I was engaged in the private practice of law it made calculating billable hours considerably easier. It drives our nephew crazy when he sees my iPhone lock screen showing something like "17:02."

[Poiponen13]

Is India an English-speaking country? I have never seen India in language maps having "English" as its language, and instead having its own languages.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Is India an English-speaking country? I have never seen India in language maps having "English" as its language, and instead having its own languages.

Do a majority of Indians speak English? No. But enough former British inflience remains as well as modern-day interest in English as a worldwide lingua franca to keep a significant minority of English speakers alive at least among the educated.

[Poiponen13]

Is India an English-speaking country? I have never seen India in language maps having "English" as its language, and instead having its own languages.

Do a majority of Indians speak English? No. But enough former British inflience remains as well as modern-day interest in English as a worldwide lingua franca to keep a significant minority of English speakers alive at least among the educated.

Why English is not mother tongue for majority of its people in India?

[GaryV]

Is India an English-speaking country? I have never seen India in language maps having "English" as its language, and instead having its own languages.

Do a majority of Indians speak English? No. But enough former British inflience remains as well as modern-day interest in English as a worldwide lingua franca to keep a significant minority of English speakers alive at least among the educated.

Why English is not mother tongue for majority of its people in India?

Because they didn't come from England. Duh.

Why isn't Hindi or Swahili the first language of people in Finland?

[1995hoo]

Is India an English-speaking country? I have never seen India in language maps having "English" as its language, and instead having its own languages.

Do a majority of Indians speak English? No. But enough former British inflience remains as well as modern-day interest in English as a worldwide lingua franca to keep a significant minority of English speakers alive at least among the educated.

Why English is not mother tongue for majority of its people in India?

Why English is not mother tongue for all persons posting on AARoads forum?

[Scott5114]

I worked third shift long enough that the reflexive followup question for any ambiguous time is still always "am or pm?". This gets a really funny reaction when the dentist asks if "two o'clock" would be a good time for an appointment.

[kkt]

I meant 'late 1980s'.  Prior to then they generally used the form '10:01am' or '3:07pm'.   Railroads also prohibit the use of 'even hours' (ie, '0659' is to be followed by '0701') in train dispatching.

Mike

Reason I ask is that 1980s seemed late for that to me, and I looked it up and found:

In 1886, the Canadian Pacific Railway train at Port Arthur began using the 24-hour clock. However, in 1893 Italy became the first to adopt the 24-hour clock nationally. The French Army began using the 24-hour clock in 1909 whereas the rest of France didn't start using this time system until 1912. The British Royal Navy began using this time system in 1915 during the First World War and the Allied forces would follow suit as well.

https://militarytimechart.net/history-24-hour-clock/#:~:text=In%201886%2C%20the%20Canadian%20Pacific,this%20time%20system%20until%201912.

[webny99]

Is India an English-speaking country? I have never seen India in language maps having "English" as its language, and instead having its own languages.

Do a majority of Indians speak English? No. But enough former British inflience remains as well as modern-day interest in English as a worldwide lingua franca to keep a significant minority of English speakers alive at least among the educated.

Why English is not mother tongue for majority of its people in India?

Why English is not mother tongue for all persons posting on AARoads forum?

Well done. 

[mgk920]

Is India an English-speaking country? I have never seen India in language maps having "English" as its language, and instead having its own languages.

Do a majority of Indians speak English? No. But enough former British inflience remains as well as modern-day interest in English as a worldwide lingua franca to keep a significant minority of English speakers alive at least among the educated.

Why English is not mother tongue for majority of its people in India?

Hindi is one of the top five native languages in the World, along with English, Arabic, Mandarin and Spanish.  English is the 'lingua Franca', regularly used by native speakers of other various languages to communicate with each other. MANY non-native speaking immigrants here in my home metro area are at least sufficiently conversant in English to be valuable contributing members  of the community.  English is a remarkably easy language to learn well enough to get along, but it takes a lifetime to truly master.

Mike

[Scott5114]

Railroads also prohibit the use of 'even hours' (ie, '0659' is to be followed by '0701') in train dispatching.

What is the rationale for this?

[Brandon]

Is India an English-speaking country? I have never seen India in language maps having "English" as its language, and instead having its own languages.

Do a majority of Indians speak English? No. But enough former British inflience remains as well as modern-day interest in English as a worldwide lingua franca to keep a significant minority of English speakers alive at least among the educated.

It's a bit more than that.  India has several languages, and English happens to be more a lingua franca amongst them.  There's a very distinct north-south split between language families in India, and the two main language families are not mutually intelligible with each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India

[mgk920]

Railroads also prohibit the use of 'even hours' (ie, '0659' is to be followed by '0701') in train dispatching.

What is the rationale for this?

Life safety.  An adage that I heard years ago is that EVERY line in the operating rulebook for railroad crews was 'written in blood'.

Mike

[Scott5114]

Railroads also prohibit the use of 'even hours' (ie, '0659' is to be followed by '0701') in train dispatching.

What is the rationale for this?

Life safety.  An adage that I heard years ago is that EVERY line in the operating rulebook for railroad crews was 'written in blood'.

Mike

Okay...so why is it more of a hazard to dispatch a train at 0700 than it is 0659 or 0701? That's what I'm not understanding.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Parents who censor their kid's face on social media photos, but not the faces of other kids in the same photo who aren't theirs.

[Hobart]

Then my question becomes --

What is 12 am - midnight or noon? I know in the military it is 0000.

What is 12 pm -- midnight or noon? I know in the military it is 1200.

Is there a standard? (meaning in the non-military and non 24-hour world, which obviously still exists)

I would say 12 am is midnight and 12 pm is noon.
In a perfect world, IMO you wouldn't use 12 am or 12 pm at all --- rather you would use midnight or noon.

But I know, as well as anyone, that some systems probably can only say 12 am or 12 pm. So perhaps times like that are best avoided?

Personally I've considered 12:00 am to be midnight, using the reasoning that 12:00:01 am would definitely be one second past midnight.  To avoid ambiguity, I would usually use the words "midnight" or "noon" instead.

I also remember a high school band trip (which involved overnight bus travel) having an itinerary which specified 11:59pm (rather than 12:00am) for a departure time, to avoid this problem.  All other times on the itinerary used "round" numbers for times - xx:00 or xx:30.

I'm the public relations guy for my university's Mug root beer club. We meet at midnight, and I always make sure to specify 11:59 PM in advertising, not just because of the noon-midnight issue, but for determining what day 12 o' clock midnight is actually on. I consider it to be the start of the day, but some might consider it the end.