I come into this a bit late in the day, but where do you get the idea that 12pm is noon in America and midnight in the rest of the world? Over here in Britain, am and pm is still widely used. 12pm designates midday and 12am designates midnight. The 24-hour clock, as I understand it, goes from 00.00, 00.01, etc, until midday, then it is 12.00, 13.00, through to 23.00 and back to 00.00. I am just intrigued by the belief that it is only the Americans that use am/pm when they are still in widespread use over here, or is there something in your argument I have overlooked? Regards, Steve. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carter, Baron" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 2:10 PM Subject: [USMA:14596] Re: Metric Marketing > In addition, the actually flight planning and flying is done by UTC. > > Baron Carter. > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, 25 July, 2001 05:35 > To: U.S. Metric Association > Subject: [USMA:14593] Re: Metric Marketing > > > In a message dated 2001-07-25 06:07:44 Eastern Daylight Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > > > Reference the US airline habit of using am/pm time, Airlines can set > their computers to issue the ticket in 24 hour format, but due to the > ignorance of the reservations agent, most do not. > > Another interesting aspect of this is that 12 pm is noon in the US and > midnight in the rest of the world. > > Mike Payne > > > > Actually the individual reservation agent has no control over how the > preferences in the reservation system are set. It's a decision made by the > airline as a whole, either globally or by region (I'm sure United's > computers > in Europe are set to 24 hour, for example). > > The USA is absolutely alone in the world in sticking with the confusing > am/pm > displays, as it is alone in so many other things. > > In Canada I go to the train stations and see the departure times on the > display systems all in 24-hour format (the timetables too), and I don't see > a > whole lot of Canadians missing trains. Same thing at the airports. The > airlines, etc. must really think Americans are dumb that they can't > understand anything else. > > Or maybe it's the unfortunate use of the phrase "military time". > > Carleton > > Carleton >
