Midnight of the day

Question

Do we refer to zero hour zero minute the early morning or midnight, the beginning or the end of the day?

Say for example midnight on 1 July 1997, does it refer to beginning of the day or the end of the day?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

healer
Do we refer to zero hour zero minute the early morning or midnight, the beginning or the end of the day?
Say for example midnight on 1 July 1997, does it refer to beginning of the day or the end of the day?

Time is tricky when you start looking at it closely. English is not in modulo 12, so you will see every combination at one time or another. The introduction of 24-hour time and the influence of the military designations muddy the waters further. Before digital watches and train schedules and the like, it never came up.

Midnight is basically just what it says, the middle of the night. In the AM/PM system, it stands outside AM and PM, as does noon. But there is a trend toward calling midnight 12 AM and noon 12 PM (Which I always get mixed up because I and about six other people know that "PM" stands for post meridiem, Latin for "after noon", and noon can't be after itself. And midnight is exactly the same distance from noon in either direction, so it's a coin toss.) In the new system, midnight starts the day. Digital clocks display midnight as 12 AM. But there is an additional problem. If I say we should meet in the graveyard at midnight Monday, the plain English of it makes midnight Monday the 12:00 right after 11:59 PM Monday.

In military time, they use both 2400 and 0000. They use 2400 when it is at the end of a time period, and 0000 when it is at the beginning. They can call it midnight either way. The 24-hour clock eliminates the AM/PM problem, but you wouldn't be able to read Big Ben at a glance from Whitehall if it was a 24-hour clock.

Sadly, or fortunately, there is no recognized authority for such matters, and the question remains up in the air. I recommend thinking of midnight as 12 AM because that seems to be where we're heading, but always take pains to make it clear what time you are talking about in your own writing. Designations like 12 AM are insufficient.

Anonymous · Answer

healerzero hour zero minute the early

This is not a common thing to say in general use. It might have limited use in some specialised contexts.

healerSay for example midnight on 1 July 1997, does it refer to beginning of the day or the end of the day?

What you wrote is a date which does not say anything about any time of that day.

Midnight of the day

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