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Pter Posted 18 years ago
Grammar

at zero hour

0Today is 6-May. A new system will be in place at 00:00 7-May. Do you use zero hour to represent that time? And which one would you say?02br
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001. The new system will be in place at zero hour tonight.02br
002. The new system will be in place at zero hour tomorrow.02br
00Or just this to avoid the awkwardness? 02br
003. The new system will be in place at midnight. 02br
00Basically, I'm not sure what's the best way to tell the time at or just after midnight, e.g. 00:00, 00:05 or 00:30.02br
00Thank you for your help! 0-
  

Top answer

0I guess it depends on the community. My auto insurance expires on June 1 at 12:01 am. If I speak to someone on the phone, they'll tell me it expires at midnight, or one minute past midnight, or "twelve-oh-one-a-m," depending on whom I'm speaking to.

— Avangi

  • 0I guess it depends on the community.
  • My auto insurance expires on June 1 at 12:01 am.
  • If I speak to someone on the phone, they'll tell me it expires at midnight, or one minute past midnight, or "twelve-oh-one-a-m," depending on whom I'm speaking to.
  • They usually like to add the one minute to avoid confusion about the actual date.
  • 02br 02br 00For years I thought I was covered for the full day on the date of expiration.
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7 Answers
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0I guess it depends on the community. My auto insurance expires on June 1 at 12:01 am. If I speak to someone on the phone, they'll tell me it expires at midnight, or one minute past midnight, or "twelve-oh-one-a-m," depending on whom I'm speaking to. They usually like to add the one minute to avoid confusion about the actual date. If I say 01i01u00midnight on June first02
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0Hi, 02br
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00The term 'zero hour' is much more commonly used as in the following example.02br
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01font00Soldiers are going to attack the enemy at 5pm.02font02br
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01font00At 2pm, they say it is '3 hours until zero hour'.02font02br
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01cite10Pter12cite10Today is 6-May. A new system will be in place at 00:00 7-May. Do you use zero hour to represent that time? And which one would you say?12br
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101. The new system will be in place at zero hour tonight.12br
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102. The new system will be in place at zero hour tomorrow.12br
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0Thank you all for the useful advice!02br
00Avangi, I can understand your shock. Do computer clocks actually go to 24:00 ?? No. Never.02br
00Clive, are you saying that nobody uses zero hour to mean the time period 00:00 to 01:00? I can't remember where I got the impression. Perhaps it was wrong or perhaps I remembered incorrectly, but I somehow thought that zero hour
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0Ha! I just found two examples of using zero hour to mean 00:00.02br
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001. The official website of the central Chinese government02br
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10"The website of China's central government, www.gov.cn, opened formally at zero hour Sunday following a three-month trial operation."12br
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12blockquote
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01cite10Pter12cite10Hi, Goodman. A problem with 12:15 am is that people tends to mis-read that as 12:15 pm, especially if they have a preconception the event is going to happen during day time. I occassionally mis-read that myself. I think that could be one possible reason why Avangi didn't notice the coverage was only 1 minute on the date of
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0Thanks, Goodman, for your comments. We already have several threads about that am/pm problem for midnight. I would just use "will take place at midnight" when refering to 00:00 tomorrow. However, when we need to talk about the midnight of a specific date, people would still wonder if it is the moment before 00:01 of that day or the moment after 23:59 of that day. That's why I thought of usi
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