On Mon, 10 Mar 2014 19:34:19 +0000, Chase, John wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of John Gilmore >> >> The latin case endings are now all but unknown; hoi polloi have somehow lost >> meridies and M entirely; >> and I now hear speculation about whether noon is AM or PM, about whether, >> that is, it is noon before >> noon or noon after noon. > >Since the duration of "noon" is infinitesimal, why bother with it? > To distinguish it from midnight. BTW, what is the neoLatin indication for midnight, "12:00 ???"
I am unmoved by the argument, "Of course noon is PM, because when I glance at my watch and it reads '12:00' it's actually some few seconds after noon." (Except for a set of measure zero.) And buses at the local RTD terminal depart at 1 minute after the scheduled time to appease passengers who complain, "I arrived, breathless, at the station to see the back of the departing bus, but the official terminal digital clock didn't change until 5 seconds later." And midnight entails a date ambiguity. Some events are scheduled at 11:59 PM or 12:01 AM to circumvent this ambiguity. 00:00 means following day; 24:00 (which shouldn't be used at all) means prior day. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
