12am and 12pm - shop opening hours

[Pseudonym99]

Is it me, or do shops not know the difference between 12am and 12pm? With Christmas and shops adjusting their opening hours, some shops remain open until midnight. On signs and websites, this is sometimes shown as 12pm. Are they really closing at lunchtime, or do they not realise that midnight is 12am?

[joanne1947]

Easier to put noon or midnight. I have used 11:59 and 23:59 to make it clear which is which.
Best if we moved away from the am and pm and used the 24 hour clock.

[ItsaboatJack]

I never know which way round it's supposed to be so I just right 12 noon, 12 midnight.

I'm sure most people though can work out that they don't really plan on closing at noon.

[PigletJohn]

a.m. means "before noon"

p.m. means "after noon"

12:00 is noon. It cannot be before or after itself.

24:00 is midnight. It is exactly 12 hours before and after noon. So it is not sensible to call it either.

[Pseudonym99]

Strictly speaking, 24.00 doesn't exist - it should be 00.00. Although I understand 24.00 to mean midnight at the end of a day, and 00.00 midnight at the beginning of a day. It is when people say 'midnight on Wednesday' - do you mean Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, or Wednesday night/Thursday morning? In my opinion 24.00 or 00.00 shouldn't be used, and 23.59 or 00.01 used instead.

But 12pm is noon, or midday. 12am is midnight.

[fredfredgeorgejnr]

I have never seen any shops get it wrong...

[mamababa]

12am, 12pm and 24:00 don't exist. It's 12 noon and 12 midnight

[DoJo]

I too have never seen a shop make this mistake - is it bigger chains or small shops where the person updating the website might well be a bit pissed?

[BetsyBoop]

I'm with mamababa and pigletjohn

it's 12 noon, 12 midnight, 12am/12pm, by definition, cannot exist and are incorrect.

[BetsyBoop]

Also when I was in the army they solved this problem by using the 24hr clock and never using 24:00/0:00.
The army day began at 0001 hours and ended at 2359 hours. (The two minutes between were ours to use as we liked!)

[mindifidont]

This is confusing! Surely 12 pm should come after 11 pm and not after 11 am?

10pm, 11pm, 12pm, 1am, 2am etc.

Not 10pm, 11pm, 12am, 1am, 2am?

(I'm from a 24 hour country so this is quite new to me!)

[bigbluestars]

OP it seems that you don't understand either.

Maybe beginning to wish you hadn't started the thread?

[TripTrapTripTrapOverTheBridge]

I only see shops that would normally be open at more midnight and past changing their Christmas opening hours to 12am (midnight). Although, truth be told I have not seen any shops do this, barring maybe one.

Yes, over the Christmas period there will be shops that shut at 12pm (midday) although many will go until 2pm.

[TripTrapTripTrapOverTheBridge]

Not sure why more added itself in the first bit there .

[notauniquename]

I think that it's easy enough to understand. (so why not complicate it?)

if you want to be really technical about it (in the UK) :
in the winter it's either noon or midnight.
in the summer midday is 12am and midnight is 12pm

however if you were talking about telling the time at a half an hour past noon you'd say it was 12:30pm (and it would be the afternoon) if it was half twelve in the morning it's be 12:30am (and dark)...

if you're wondering why in the summer it can be 12:30 am and still the afternoon it's because noon refers to the time, whilst AM (anti meridian) and PM (Post meridian) refers to a sun being in it's highest position.

so in the summer we put the clocks forward, the meridian happens at 1pm. (which is literally saying the meridian happens 1 hour after the meridian has happened). (at 12:30pm in the summer you're half an hour from the meridian that will happen at 1pm, but half an hour after a made up meridian created by a bureaucratic choice of standardised time.)

given that there is very little relation to the actual meridian and time nowadays, and 12:00 is only the meridian if you're at zero degrees and then only for an instant, and the rest of that minute is all after the meridian I don't think it's all that unreasonable to call 12:00 a PM time, even in the summer when it's most definitely not!

and anyone arguing otherwise is probably just trying to be clever.