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From: Jared Sherman (no email)
Date: Mon Oct 18 2004 - 16:46:19 EDT
<And is 12:00 p.m. midnight or noon?>
Gary, the terms "12AM" and "12PM" are (nothing personal) not times, but
rather hallmarks of illiteracy. Noon is "midi" in French or "mid day" in
English. While any other time can be referred to as apres-midi (AM, before
noon) or post-midi (PM, after noon) "obviously" noon can neither come before
or after itself.
So the clock goes from 11:59:59 AM to NOON then 12:00:01 PM.
And I note in passing that "AM" and "PM" are considered to be incorrect as
well. proper typography and usage in the US requires that these letters be
set in small capital letters, not full capitals and never with periods.
ASCII email doesn't allow me that.
Of course, since the schools can't bother teaching these things, and even
the newspapers no longer bother to hire literate writers or editors, why
should we expect anyone to be able to read the clocks.<G> I actually know
some kids who are in their late teens now, who ten years ago had problems
reading analog clocks--the schools didn't use them any more!
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