Joel C. Ewing wrote:

<begin extract>
 Perhaps you were thinking TOD conventions force Jan 1, 1900 to be
considered as day "1" requiring an origin backup of one day, but that
is not the case.

Inconsistent conventions in 12-hour time about whether midnight should
be considered AM or PM make the date to be associated with midnight in
12-hour notation much more confused -- yet another argument in favor
of using only 24-hour time!
<end extract>

I have two comments.  The first is the obvious one that the
predecessor of +1 on the real line is 0.   The second is that ancient
one-origin conventions were not so bad when they were observed
coherently.  Their deficiencies are only thrown into hgh relief when
they are dumbed down.

Anciently one had

o AM, ante meridiem, before noon

o M, meridies, noon, and

o PM, post meridiem, after noon.

There were then no confusions.  Abolishing m--letting it fall into
desuetude in deference to the subliterate--introduced the
pseudo-problems to which Mr. Ewing refers.

He and I do certainly agree on the mertits of 24-hour clocks.  I do
not find hkijs other comments persuasive.

John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA

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