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Jingtian Posted 19 years ago
Vocabulary

12:00pm

"You should give me a release before 12:00pm Friday BJ time."

BJ means Beijing here.

What does 12:00pm mean here? The hour after 11:00am or the one after 23:00?
  

Top answer

It is probably noon, but it's always the same problem-- nobody knows; you have to figure it out logically. I tell everyone I meet to use the phrases ' 12 noon ' and ' 12 midnight '! m.

— Mister Micawber

  • It is probably noon, but it's always the same problem-- nobody knows; you have to figure it out logically.
  • I tell everyone I meet to use the phrases ' 12 noon ' and ' 12 midnight '!
  • m.
  • m.
  • denotes noon, but there is sufficient confusion over these uses to make it advisable to use 12 noon and 12 midnight where clarity is required.
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4 Answers
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It is probably noon, but it's always the same problem-- nobody knows; you have to figure it out logically. I tell everyone I meet to use the phrases '12 noon' and '12 midnight'!

From the Am Heritage Dictionary:

By definition, 12 a.m. denotes midnight, and 12 p.m. denotes noon, but there is sufficient confusion over these uses to make it advisable to
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Thank you very much.
To use 12 noon and 12 midnight should be encouraged.
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Indeed, I agree - it is confusing (especially for little kids who are learning to tell the time!) but if you think about it like this:

11:58am...
11:59am...
12:00pm << (or, noon) this is when the afternoon starts

then later:

11:58pm...
11:59pm...
12:00am (or, midnight)

It should become clearer then. Of course, using
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Thanks.

It is the first time that I have heard about the term Zulu time. I have only heard about Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and Universal Time before.
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