The Lemon Fool

I am waiting for an online payment that supposedly comes before 12pm, can I expect it this morning?

John

redsturgeon wrote:I am waiting for an online payment that supposedly comes before 12pm, can I expect it this morning?

There's no strict definition of what 12pm means, but by convention it's midday. It's a rather stupid term for an organisation to use though, when they could have easily made it unambiguous.

Scott.

swill453 wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:I am waiting for an online payment that supposedly comes before 12pm, can I expect it this morning?

There's no strict definition of what 12pm means, but by convention it's midday. It's a rather stupid term for an organisation to use though, when they could have easily made it unambiguous.

Scott.

I agree it should always be made unambiguous. There is no such thing as 12pm or 12am - it's nonsense. How can the hour of twelve being either ante- or post meridian? It is precisely neither.
And whatever the convention might or might not be, usage can change, and might - for all one knows- change between countries.

It can become quite confusing is some cases - road signs etc - and one can only hope to guess from the context what was meant.

Simply using the 24 hours clock would solve it which is why, as a sailor, I always do.*

Arb.

*However, there are other ambiguities which prove hilarious - or disastrous. A group of boats I was with just arrived in Alderney agreed to set off at 04.00 in the morning. One yacht on BST, one working in "Zulu" (GMT) and one had reset his clock to FST. Imagine the confusion! Fortunately no harm was done since the weather was awful and we all decided to stay put.

I think we've done this one before, several times !
12am/12pm are just confusing - they should be using 1200 for noon, or 0000 for midnight (at the start of the specified day)
ISO8601 is the standard

swill453 wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:I am waiting for an online payment that supposedly comes before 12pm, can I expect it this morning?

There's no strict definition of what 12pm means, but by convention it's midday.

Scott.

There is a very strict definition of what 12pm means.
It's all to do with our clock and calendar being based on the movements of the Sun.

Meridian is an astronomical term concerning a great circle perpendicular to the horizon that passes through the North and South horizon points.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_(astronomy)

PM stands for Post Meridian. I.e. When the Sun just passes through the meridian. When the sun is (theoretically) directly overhead.
So 12pm is around about when school children make a trip to the canteen.

absolutezero wrote:There is a very strict definition of what 12pm means.

No, there isn't.

Can you point to something that backs up your assertion? Your reference to Wikipedia for the meridian doesn't.

Scott.

AleisterCrowley wrote:I think we've done this one before, several times !
12am/12pm are just confusing - they should be using 1200 for noon, or 0000 for midnight (at the start of the specified day)
ISO8601 is the standard

Irresepective of what the ISO standard says, 0000 is ambiguous, and causes easily avoided confusion.

The usual practice is to have ending times at 2359, and start times at 0001
So an annual insurance policy might run from Sept 25th 2020 at 0001, and will end at Sept 24th 2021 at 2359.

I've done the same when scheduling overnight maintenance work - a midnight start was always advertised as starting at 0001hrs, and dated as taking place "in the morning".

All the bank had to say was 12 noon (assuming that that is what they meant of course). That is surely unambiguous. No need for the 24 hour clock although that too would surely have solved the problem.

Dod

Analogue or digital?

If a digital clock is set to change at precisely the start of the minute or second, a display of 12:00 (noon), except for the instant that it changes, will indicate a pm time. On this basis, the convention that 12 noon is pm makes the most sense to me.


Julian F. G. W.

Royal Museums Greenwich, which of course includes the Royal Observatory, say:

"At 12 noon, the Sun is at its highest point in the sky and directly over the meridian. It is therefore neither 'ante' (am) nor 'post' (pm)." https://www.rmg.co.uk/explore/noon-12-am-or-12-pm

It seems that the website is using 12pm to mean noon...I have been credited my money.

John

redsturgeon wrote:It seems that the website is using 12pm to mean noon...I have been credited my money.

Well, you did get it before midnight tonight too...

Scott.

pochisoldi wrote:

AleisterCrowley wrote:I think we've done this one before, several times !
12am/12pm are just confusing - they should be using 1200 for noon, or 0000 for midnight (at the start of the specified day)
ISO8601 is the standard

Irrespective of what the ISO standard says, 0000 is ambiguous, and causes easily avoided confusion.

The usual practice is to have ending times at 2359, and start times at 0001
So an annual insurance policy might run from Sept 25th 2020 at 0001, and will end at Sept 24th 2021 at 2359.

I've done the same when scheduling overnight maintenance work - a midnight start was always advertised as starting at 0001hrs, and dated as taking place "in the morning".

0000 is NOT ambiguous. It refers to the start of the day. So 20200923:0000 was the start of today. It cannot refer to any other time, so is not ambiguous.

AleisterCrowley wrote:

pochisoldi wrote:

AleisterCrowley wrote:I think we've done this one before, several times !
12am/12pm are just confusing - they should be using 1200 for noon, or 0000 for midnight (at the start of the specified day)
ISO8601 is the standard

Irrespective of what the ISO standard says, 0000 is ambiguous, and causes easily avoided confusion.

The usual practice is to have ending times at 2359, and start times at 0001
So an annual insurance policy might run from Sept 25th 2020 at 0001, and will end at Sept 24th 2021 at 2359.

I've done the same when scheduling overnight maintenance work - a midnight start was always advertised as starting at 0001hrs, and dated as taking place "in the morning".

0000 is NOT ambiguous. It refers to the start of the day. So 20200923:0000 was the start of today. It cannot refer to any other time, so is not ambiguous.

OK, it's not ambiguous, and its not open to misinterpretation by others, and I've never had situations where people have misunderstood an agreed start time, and have expected work to start 24hrs ahead or after the intended time. My experience counts for nothing.

I guess the insurance companies using the start at 0001 and end at 2359 terminology don't think its ambiguous either, and their experience counts for nothing either.

12:00:00 could be am at midday
but 12:00:01 would have to be pm i.e. one second after midday

so it's more sensible to me if 12:00:00 is pm

these are the kind of problems that make life difficult, but if you were on Mars the extended present would mean it could be both am and pm at the same time. There are some compensations for not being on Mars. (Not sure about Yorkshire but I'm not there either though I have visited in the past.)

AleisterCrowley wrote:0000 is NOT ambiguous. It refers to the start of the day. So 20200923:0000 was the start of today. It cannot refer to any other time, so is not ambiguous.

I absolutely agree, it is correct and unambiguous.

But it does lead to the slight anomaly that 00:00 = midnight, but "00:00 on Tuesday" and "midnight on Tuesday" are 24 hours apart.

Scott, sowing deliberate confusion since 00:01.

I would always take 12.00pm to mean midday.

pochisoldi wrote:

AleisterCrowley wrote:

pochisoldi wrote:
Irrespective of what the ISO standard says, 0000 is ambiguous, and causes easily avoided confusion.

The usual practice is to have ending times at 2359, and start times at 0001
So an annual insurance policy might run from Sept 25th 2020 at 0001, and will end at Sept 24th 2021 at 2359.

I've done the same when scheduling overnight maintenance work - a midnight start was always advertised as starting at 0001hrs, and dated as taking place "in the morning".

0000 is NOT ambiguous. It refers to the start of the day. So 20200923:0000 was the start of today. It cannot refer to any other time, so is not ambiguous.

OK, it's not ambiguous, and its not open to misinterpretation by others, and I've never had situations where people have misunderstood an agreed start time, and have expected work to start 24hrs ahead or after the intended time. My experience counts for nothing.

I guess the insurance companies using the start at 0001 and end at 2359 terminology don't think its ambiguous either, and their experience counts for nothing either.

It is not ambiguous but may be open to misinterpretation by humans, hence the work-arounds mentioned. IT systems have no such problems. Usually.

swill453 wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:I am waiting for an online payment that supposedly comes before 12pm, can I expect it this morning?

There's no strict definition of what 12pm means, but by convention it's midday. It's a rather stupid term for an organisation to use though, when they could have easily made it unambiguous.

Scott.

This.

i distinctly remember being taught at school a million years ago (aged 8?) that 12am and 12pm were meaningless and should never be used.

If anyone is interested there's a very recent discussion on this on Pistonheads https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/top ... &t=1891127

It started with a tale about car insurance finishing at midnight Saturday and the guy getting nicked at 00:05 Saturday morning. Seems indeed the day starts at midnight. The previous day finishes at 23:59.

In typical Pistonheads fashion the debate degenerates but a good read nevertheless.