Re:The surprisingly subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed h...
by thaumasiotes on Sunday November 05, 2023 @07:56AM
(#38150729)
The word "meridiem" means "noon", the middle of the day. Noon itself is neither before nor after noon.
You're right that by convention noon is assigned a pm tag and midnight is assigned an am tag. But midnight, when the calendar date changes, is confusing enough to people that e.g. airplane departures will be scheduled for 11:59 pm rather than 12:00 am, because there's no ambiguity about when 11:59 pm will happen on Wednesday, whereas it isn't clear when midnight will happen on Wednesday -- technically, if it's Wednesday, midnight already happened on Tuesday night.
It is far more common for people to end their personal day after midnight than it is to begin it before midnight, so the convention directly contradicts the way pretty much everyone views "the day".
You're right that by convention noon is assigned a pm tag and midnight is assigned an am tag. But midnight, when the calendar date changes, is confusing enough to people that e.g. airplane departures will be scheduled for 11:59 pm rather than 12:00 am, because there's no ambiguity about when 11:59 pm will happen on Wednesday, whereas it isn't clear when midnight will happen on Wednesday -- technically, if it's Wednesday, midnight already happened on Tuesday night.
It is far more common for people to end their personal day after midnight than it is to begin it before midnight, so the convention directly contradicts the way pretty much everyone views "the day".