On Thursday, September 12, 2019 06:30:21 AM Dan Ritter wrote: > David Wright wrote: > > Even more astonishing is the fact that the US Government switched > > their am/pm meanings sometime between 2000 and 2008, which shows > > just how ambiguous they are.
Wow! I believe that, I just didn't realize that (and I might have a rambling old man story / rant that I'll tell (below) about change (sometimes by government, sometimes by others). (I was going to try to avoid telling it, but I'm a rambling old man. By putting it at the end, it will be easy to ignore ;-) Regretfully, I always get confused. > There is only one sensible interpretation: > > If 11:59 AM is two minutes before 12:01 PM, then 12:00 is PM. @Dan Ritter -- I don't understand your logic -- oh, now I see, you consider 12 to be zero -- I have trouble seeing why sensible people wouldn't consider the next number after 11:59 to be 12? And why not: (no need to reply!) If 12:01 pm is two minutes after 11:59 am, then 12:00 is AM. But, ok, I'll try to burn that into my memory -- at night (when it is dark) 12:00 (midnight) is the beginning of morning (12:00 am). During the day, when it is light 12:00 (noon) is the beginning of night (12:00 pm). > If 11:59 PM is two minutes before 12:01 AM, then 12:00 is AM. > > The problem stems from 12 actually indicating what anybody > sensible would consider 0. > > -dsr- <OT stories / rants> <Story 1> People in the US drive on the right hand side of the road (except for special cases like one way roads or such.) Some number of years ago, somebody (presumably a police commissioner or other high muckety much decided that, at the entrance and exit to the underground parking garage under our town's city hall complex, they would reverse that. Just crazy (imho). That could have been 20 years ago (or not, but it's been a long time). Fairly recently, somebody (who I credit with good sense) reversed it again -- of course, that caught be by surprise, but fortunately, no one was coming the other way. I'm not explicitly aware of accidents that occurred during the ~20 years while the entrance and exit were the other way, but I can imagine some confusion and close calls by drivers not used to that strangeness. (To try to clarify, there are two entrances / exits to the underground garage, you can enter or exit at either one.) <Story 2> Children in the US are (were??) taught to walk on the right (and adults to the extent adults might be taught to walk). Now I consider establishments like Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Walmart, and others to be foreign infiltrators, as, when they have an In and an Out door side by side, the In is on the left. (Ok, Walmart is only a halfway foreign infiltrator, as they typically have at least two entrances with In and Out doors, one of them has the In door on the left, the other has the In door on the right.) Regardless, when I got to Walmart, I enter the right hand door, whether it is marked in or out. If anybody complains, I tell them I am an American ;-) I avoid going to places like Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and similar unless I really have to. </OT stories / rants>
