We in Russia, Ukraine and many other countries are used to the fact that there are 24 hours in one day. However, there are places where this is not the case. No, they are not on another planet that rotates faster or slower than the Earth. The fact is that they consider time in a different format.
Many have seen the abbreviations AM and PM, but few people thought about what they mean. Below we will just figure out what AM and PM are and why.
AM PM - time
AM and PM are abbreviations that stand for the following:
- AM- Ante Meridiem (in translation - before noon);
- PM– Post Meridiem (“ Afternoon«).
Thus, the day is divided into two parts - equal to 12 hours.
As you can see, everything is very simple. The only difficulty lies in adapting to the appropriate format. Usually people who come, for example, to the United States or Australia, at first are very confused when they try to find out the time not from their watches.
Where the AM and PM system is used
The corresponding time system is used to varying degrees in many countries. However, it is most prevalent in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines.
Partially it is applied in Ireland, France and Greece. But the list is not limited to this. There are more than a hundred countries where the division of the day according to the AM and PM system is used in informal communication, despite the officially adopted 24-hour system.
It should be noted that Russia also belongs to these countries. Here many say, for example: 3 hours (meaning day) or 2 hours (meaning night). On the other hand in this case not quite the AM / PM system is used, but the designation by time of day (example: 8 pm instead of 8 pm), but the essence does not change.
Problems that arise due to differences in time systems
The calculation of time is regulated by the ISO 8601 standard. However, despite this, in different parts planets, there are several solutions for how to designate midnight and noon. The result is confusion.
The fact is that Meridiem in English language literally translated as "noon" or "midday" because of which it is linguistically impossible to accurately attribute exactly 12 noon and 12 noon to PM or AM (they can be either the first or the second). In view of this, in some countries exactly midnight can be denoted as both PM and AM (the same applies to noon). Despite the fact that such errors are by and large inherent in informal communication, they can also influence the conduct of business. For example, a trader may say that he will close the trade at 12.00PM, when in fact he meant 00.00 in the 24-hour system.
The problem is partially solved by introducing American system. In it, it is customary not to use 12:00 at all, whether it is midnight or noon. Instead, use 11:59 AM if you want to define the end of the day, and if you want to indicate the beginning next day, then 12:01 PM is used. A difference of 1 minute is generally not significant, and where it matters, the 24-hour system is used. I think you figured out what AM and PM mean and can easily navigate the time.
Video illustration of AM and PM designations
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Today, once and for all, we will find out what am and pm mean in English, how these abbreviations are deciphered and how to correctly call time from them.
What is the difference between am and pm?
AM and PM are abbreviations used to indicate the time of day. Both of them came to English from Latin.
AM (ante meridiem) - before noon [hey um]
PM (post meridiem) - after noon [pi em]
They can be found in countries where the twelve-hour time format is adopted. These include Canada, USA, New Zealand and the Philippines. Together with the generally accepted 24-hour format, 12-hour is also used in the UK, Brazil and a number of other countries. They can indicate the time in any way. In other countries, the twenty-four-hour time format is adopted, which is familiar to us.
The 12-hour format divides the day (24 hours) into two segments of twelve hours.
We use a.m. when talking about the interval from 12 noon (midnight) to 12 noon (noon). That is, from 00:00 to 12:00.
For example:
It's two a.m. - Two in the morning (2:00).
It's five a.m. - Five in the morning (5:00).
It's ten a.m. - Ten in the morning (10:00).
He comes at 9 a.m. - He comes at 9 am.
The train leaves at 11 a.m. - The train leaves at 11 am.
p.m. We use it when we talk about the interval from 12 noon (noon) to 12 midnight (midnight). That is, from 12:00 to 00:00.
For example:
It "s two p.m. - Two in the afternoon (14:00).
It's five p.m. - Five pm (17:00).
It's ten p.m. - Ten in the evening (22:00).
We met at 11 p.m. - We met at 11 pm.
The train leaves at 11 p.m. - The train leaves at 11 pm.
Noon and midnight
In spite of international standards designations of the 12-hour format - there is still no unambiguity between the designation of such insidious time as "noon" and "midnight".
Some indicate noon as "12 a.m." ("12 ante meridiem", or "12 o'clock until midday"). By this logic, midnight can also be referred to as "12 p.m." (12 post meridiem or 12 hours after the previous midday).
National maritime museum Greenwich suggests designating midnight as "12 o'clock at night" and noon as "12 o'clock in the afternoon". And many American certified style guides suggest designating midnight as 11.59 p.m. to emphasize the end of one day, but already designate the beginning of the next day as 12.01 a.m..
By the way, it is precisely because of the difficulties in understanding and determining time using the 12-hour format that the US Army has been using the 24-hour format since the Second World War, which avoids errors in navigation and marking the time of hostilities.
If in doubt about how to correctly indicate this time of day, discard the numbers and say in full:
Midday - noon
Midnight - midnight
For more information on how to talk about the time of day in English, see this article:
Comparison table of 24-hour and 12-hour time formats
How to write and use am and pm correctly?
There are several ways to write the 12-hour time format:
> Dotted: a.m. and p.m.
> No dots: am and pm
> In words: AM and PM
The most correct of the three is spelling with dots, but you can often find the other two. In any case, these designations are placed after the numbers, like the well-known o'clock.
Very often the abbreviations am and pm are found on electronic clock, in the time of work of the enterprise, as well as in the schedule of traffic or classes.
For example, if you see "The office is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.", it will mean that the office hours are from 9 am to 6 pm.
Also, be careful when scheduling a meeting and make sure that your interlocutor understands the agreed time correctly.
Example sentences with am and pm with translation
It is five fifteen AM- It's five fifteen in the morning.
It's eight thirty PM- It's eight thirty in the evening.
We must send this letter at 2 a.m.- We have to send this letter at two o'clock in the morning.
Tomorrow I'll wake up at 6 am, not later- Tomorrow I will wake up at six in the morning, not later.
Today I'm going to work up to 8 p.m.- Today I'm going to work until 8 pm.
It is not polite to call somebody concerning a job offer before or after working hours, or during weekends. Also it is better to make personal calls from 9 a.m. till 10 p.m.- It is impolite to call someone about work before or after work hours or during weekends. Also, it is better to make personal calls from 9 am to 10 pm.
Pharmacies in Prague are usually open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. and on Saturday from 9 a.m. till noon- Pharmacies in Prague are usually open Monday to Friday from 9 am to 5:30 pm and on Saturdays from 9 am to noon.
The hotel offers 10 guest rooms, a secured car parking and a restaurant with working hours from 9 a.m. till 11 p.m.- The hotel offers 10 guest rooms, secure parking and a restaurant open from 9 am to 11 pm.
From 7 a.m. till 11 a.m. buffet breakfast is served for the guests of the hotel's restaurant on the first floor- From 7 am to 11 am, breakfast is served at the hotel's restaurant on the ground floor.
Children under 16 may not be hired for work from 8 p.m. till 6 a.m. Teenagers under 18 may not be hired for work from 10 p.m. till 6 a.m., or from 11 p.m. till 7 a.m.- Children under the age of 16 cannot be employed from 8pm to 6am. Teenagers under the age of 18 cannot be hired from 10pm to 6am or from 11pm to 7am.
The change of day and night naturally divides the day into two parts. And this significant difference between the time of day was reflected even in the language. We say "at two o'clock in the afternoon" or "at two o'clock in the morning" to emphasize whether the action took place during the day or at night. And there are two more wonderful words in Russian for this purpose: “afternoon” and “midnight”.
In ancient times, time was determined differently day and night. During the day, if the sun was shining, then sundial. And at night - by sand or water clocks, measuring the amount of expired sand or water. Who needed to measure time at night? Guards and stargazers. The shepherds did without watches, determining the time by the stars. Later, when navigation appeared, knowing the exact time became a guarantee that the ship would not get lost at sea, losing sight of the coast. Therefore, on the ship, one of the important watch posts was at hourglass. The sailor watched the stream of sand and turned the hourglass over when the sand finally poured from the top of the bottle to the bottom. What he immediately signaled, for example, by striking a bell. Usually the “factory” of the hourglass was enough for a quarter of an hour, so the bell on the ship rang every fifteen minutes. This was called "beating the flasks."
As you can see, there was "day" time and "night" time. When, already in the Middle Ages, tower clocks appeared in cities, their dial was divided into 12 sectors, because they were actually “daytime”, at night, in the darkness, the dial could not be seen. And if on the tower clock the arrow pointed to the number "7", people themselves were unmistakably oriented, either it was time to open a shop, or the working day had already ended. Pretty soon, chimes were invented, watches in which time could not only be seen on the dial, but also heard by the corresponding number of bell strikes.
For many cities, the clock has become one of the attractions. The clock mechanism was forced not only to ring the bells, but also to show whole puppet shows. If the clock was high on the tower, then the dolls were made huge so that you could see them from below. Sometimes, on the contrary, the clock was lowered lower. Every hour people gathered to them to stare at the moralizing mechanical mystery. Probably the most famous clock of this type is the clock on the Town Hall Square in Prague.
The dial of this watch, by the way, is divided into 24 sectors. They show not only "day" time, but also "night" time too. Also day and month.
The two systems of calculating the time of day that had developed in this way seemed to cohabit on the same territory. AT oral speech a twelve-hour system was preferred, with the addition, if necessary, of indicating the time of day. Moreover, the watches that appeared in personal use, pocket and wrist, usually had a dial divided into 12 sectors. In writing, that is, mainly in orders and directives, the twenty-four hour system was preferred. This made it possible to avoid ambiguity, which was especially important in military affairs. Bringing a regiment to the river and crossing to the other side at four o'clock in the afternoon or at four o'clock in the morning are completely different things, aren't they? In the United States and Canada, the twenty-four-hour system for representing the time of day is called “military” or “astronomical”.
In everyday life in these countries, the twelve-hour system is practically the standard. In this system, the hour of the day is indicated by a number from 1 to 12 with the addition of two letters, AM or PM. These letters are an abbreviation of the Latin words "ante meridiem" ("before noon") and "post meridiem" ("afternoon").
Usually, the question arises as to how noon and midnight are designated in the twelve-hour system. The convention is that 12:00AM is noon and 12:00PM is midnight. Therefore, the minutes of the first hour after noon in the twelve-hour record are designated as follows: 12:15AM. This corresponds to 12:15 in the twenty-four hour record. The time of the first hour after midnight is 12:30PM. This corresponds to 0:30 in a twenty-four hour recording. That is, there is no zero in the twelve-hour time system. Its role is played by the number 12.
Hello, dear readers of the blog site. It seems to be a question, but how often does it arise. For example, when working with English-language services, it is always difficult for me to immediately remember what time it is 10.00 PM in terms of our time feeling (do you mean morning or evening?). And in general, where did these AM and PM come from, who needs them and why not use only the 24-hour format?
Well, here the question is probably from the same area as the use right-hand traffic vehicles in some countries - it just so happened and nothing can be done here. You just need to deal with these a.m.'s once and for all. and p.m. (to get into your head the relationship with the 24-hour ruler), well, or at worst, write yourself a cheat sheet (if, like in my head, nothing lasts for a particularly long time). Where to write? Yes, right here, i.e. on your blog pages. So I will do...
Are we really that far away from the 12 hour time format?
The time format using AM and PM is widespread not only in the bourgeoisie, sometimes its echoes can be observed in the Runet space (mainly in localized bourgeois projects). For example, known to many bloggers, he suggests choosing the time for sending letters to subscribers based on the 12-hour format, and not the 24-hour one:
It seems that the time zone also indicates that here a.m. and p.m. do not understand, and the interface is translated into Russian. No, habit is second nature. And how do I understand 11:00 am - 1:00 pm? Is it from 11 am to 1 pm or from 11 pm to 1 am? You need to google, and so every time, to know for sure ...
Although, I, probably, in vain so attacked the bourgeoisie with their AM and PM. If you think about it, then you and I also half live in a 12-hour world. For example, when they ask you the time, you don’t answer that it’s now fifteen minutes to eighteen, but say that it’s fifteen minutes to six, and in the evenings or mornings - a person is able to determine for himself. In this regard, we are the same.
At the same time, in Russian-language texts, in most cases (yes, always) the 24-hour time scale is used. But here we have an arrow clock, again in a 12-hour format. It would probably be difficult to fit 24 hours there and it would look overloaded.
But our digital clock is again 24-hour, while the Americans have it, judging by the films, 12-hour with a.m. and p.m.
Oh, how everything in life is messed up, if you think about it.
Decoding and nuances of using A.M. and P.M.
But this is all verbiage, and what does AM and PM mean?(how these abbreviations are deciphered). It turns out that these abbreviations are Latin and literally mean the following:
- AM - before noon
- PM - after noon (this, by the way, is easier to remember, because the first letters in Russian and Latin name match)
This can be quite well illustrated by the following two pointer chronometers:
Then PM is evening and AM is morning. Everything seems to be simple, but there is a small problem. It's all good until it's over before noon or midnight, i.e. rendezvous cycles a.m. and p.m.
In general, it turns out that different countries, accepting a 12-hour cycle, these moments can be celebrated in different ways ( and 12 p.m. and 12 a.m.). Thus, there are discrepancies (such as "the glass is half full or it is half empty"). For me, it would be more logical to use not 12 p.m., but 0 p.m., which would be much more logical, but the bourgeoisie knows better. The result is this, in my opinion, absurdity:
After 12 a.m. goes 01a.m. etc. And after 12p.m. goes 01p.m. I personally have a hard time getting used to it (how can a 1 come after 12?). Americans generally mark midnight in documents as 11:59 p.m., and noon as 12:01 a.m., so that there are no legal incidents and discrepancies. They are kinda weird...
AM and PM to 24 hour conversion table
Well, the full plate of correspondence between 12 and 24-hour time format will then look like this:
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Some countries, including the US, Canada, and Australia, use the 12-hour clock format including am and pm. What do these abbreviations mean? Is midnight am or pm?
12-hour clock at noon: 12 am or 12 pm?
Logically, noon can be stated as both 12 am and 12 pm. We recommend using 12 noon instead.
©iStockphoto.com/Gordon Dixon
Two 12-Hour Periods
The 12-hour system divides the 24 hours of a day into two periods lasting 12 hours each. The first 12-hour period is designated as am. It runs from midnight to noon. The second period, marked pm, covers the 12 hours from noon to midnight.
The abbreviations am and pm derive from Latin:
- AM = Ante meridium: Before none
- PM = Post meridium: After none
Using numbers from 1 to 12, followed by am or pm, the 12-hour clock system identifies all 24 hours of the day. For example, 5 am is early in the morning, and 5 pm is late in the afternoon; 1 am is one hour after midnight, while 11 pm is one hour before midnight.
Ante meridiem is commonly denoted as AM, am, a.m., or A.M.; post meridiem is usually abbreviated PM, pm, p.m., or P.M..
Midnight and Noon: AM or PM?
The main weakness of the 12-hour system is a widespread confusion about which abbreviation should be used for noon and midnight: neither moment can logically be identified as before noon (am) or after noon (pm). For example, the moment of midnight occurs precisely 12 hours after noon on the previous day and 12 hours before noon on the following day.
Although the precise moment of noon falls in neither category, the hour succeeding it, from 12:00:01 to 12:59:59, is clearly after noon.
To avoid any confusion when referring to the precise moment of noon or midnight, we recommend using the designs 12 noon and 12 midnight instead.
Midnight Confusion
Another source of confusion is the lack of a date designator in the 12-hour system, making it impossible to logically identify a correct moment in time when only a date and 12:00 am (midnight) is provided.
Imagine being asked to pick up a friend at the airport at 12:00 am on April 13. Would you go there at midnight between April 12 and April 13? Or 24 hours later?
One way to overcome this problem is to sacrifice accuracy for clarity. Your friend could ask you to be at the airport at 12:01 am on April 13 or, if the following midnight is meant, at 11:59 pm on April 13. alternatively, the 24-hour format could be used. Here, 0:00 refers to midnight at the beginning of the day while 24:00 is midnight at the end of the day.
| Time Formats | |
|---|---|
| 12-hour | 24 hours |
| 12:00 (midnight) | 0:00 (beginning of the day) |
| 12:01 am | 0:01 |
| 1:00 a.m. | 1:00 |
| 2:00 a.m. | 2:00 |
| 3:00 a.m. | 3:00 |
| 4:00 a.m. | 4:00 |
| 5:00 a.m. | 5:00 |
| 6:00 a.m. | 6:00 |
| 7:00 a.m. | 7:00 |
| 8:00 a.m. | 8:00 |
| 9:00 a.m. | 9:00 |
| 10:00 a.m. | 10:00 |
| 11:00 a.m. | 11:00 |
| 12:00 noon | 12:00 |
| 12:01 p.m. | 12:01 |
| 1:00 p.m. | 13:00 |
| 2:00 p.m. | 14:00 |
| 3:00 p.m. | 15:00 |
| 4:00 p.m. | 16:00 |
| 5:00 p.m. | 17:00 |
| 6:00 p.m. | 18:00 |
| 7:00 p.m. | 19:00 |
| 8:00 p.m. | 20:00 |
| 9:00 p.m. | 21:00 |
| 10:00 p.m. | 22:00 |
| 11:00 p.m. | 23:00 |
| 12:00 p.m. | 24:00 (end of the day) |
Converting 12-Hour to 24-Hour Format
A 24-hour clock, sometimes referred to as military time, states the time according to the number of hours that have passed since midnight. Starting at midnight, hours are numbered from 0 to 24, removing the need for designs like am and pm. For example, at 23:00, 23 hours have passed since the beginning of the current day.
To convert am or pm time to the 24-hour format, use these rules:
From midnight to 12:59 am, subtract 12 hours.
12:49 am = 0:49 (12:49 - 12)
From 1 am to noon, do nothing.
11:49 am = 11:49 am
From 12:01 pm to 12:59 pm, do nothing.
12:49pm = 12:49pm
From 1:00 pm to midnight, add 12 hours.
1:49 pm = 13:49 (1:49 + 12)
Here's how to convert time on a 24-hour clock to the 12-hour system:
From 0:00 (midnight) to 0:59, add 12 hours and use am.
0:49 = 12:49 am (0:49 + 12)
From 1:00 to 11:59, just add am after the time.
11:49 = 11:49 am
From 12:00 to 12:59, just add pm after the time.
12:49 = 12:49 p.m.
From 13:00 to 0:00, subtract 12 hours and use pm.
13:49 = 1:49 pm (13:49 - 12)
Where Is the 12-Hour Format Used?
Most countries around the world today use the 24-hour system. The 12-hour format, including am and pm, is officially used only in the United States, Canada (except Québec), Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines.
Why Does the Day Have 24 Hours?
The Egyptians are thought to be responsible for dividing the day into 24 equal parts. One account suggests this this custom evolved because the Egyptians commonly used the base 12, counting the 3 joints in their fingers, not including the thumb.
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
11:15 :56
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