Jan 11 2009
How about an unambiguous time?
Since Ravyn and I were having this great conversation in the comments section of the previous post relating to problems with dates, I figured I’d bring up “time” as a full-fledged blog topic so y’all don’t miss out 
 This image originally uploaded by zoutedrop |
Firstly, it is important to remember that the letters “A” and “P” in AM and PM mean ante (before) and post (after), and the “M” stands for meridian, or middle. So it is wrong wrong wrong to write noon or midnight as “12 am” or “12 pm” since 12 *is* the “middle”!
Surprisingly, it’s here in the USA that I face the 12 AM/PM interpretation challenge all too often. I don’t understand why this is the case, actually. Then again, this is the country that still uses miles and gallons while pretty much the rest of the world has moved on to the metric system… 
In Switzerland there’s no ambiguity, no confusion. That’s the benefit of using a 24-hr format instead of a 12-hr one. Sure, midnight can appear as either 00:00 or 24:00, but we’d immediately know it’s midnight, and not noon, right?
 The time is… Originally uploaded by ➨ Redvers |
This system is also used in many communities where ambiguity about the time would cause too much confusion, or might even be dangerous: the military; astronomy; hospitals; transportation systems - airports, train stations, bus schedules.
Malaysia doesn’t use the 24-hr format. In general, however, I don’t recall facing a problem interpreting 12 am or 12 pm because I think everyone just avoids writing out those two particular times! Or if they do, like me, they’d specify noon (tengahari, or 12n) or midnight (tengah malam, or 12mn).
There’s one exception: there used to be a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Zürich scheduled to depart at fifteen minutes past midnight, a.k.a. 12:15 am. The airline ended up changing the official departure time to 11:45 pm the night before, because they were constantly having people turn up later in the day, thinking they had a noon flight!
 Casio Melody Alarm Originally uploaded by Nadia308 |
Why didn’t they just write the departure time as 00:15, you ask? Well, I think Malaysians in general can’t (won’t?) wrap their minds around the 24-hr concept!
Back when I got my first digital wrist watch, I decided to “make it tell time like in Switzerland”. Problem was, my classmates just couldn’t understand what they saw on the dial, and would always ask “Your watch is broken, is it?”. It got quite annoying - couldn’t they make that “leap” and figure out 13:15 was 1:15pm?
Not really.
So on one hand (pun *so* intended!) I got attention because of my “broken” watch, but on the other hand, it caused more stress than necessary! Good thing by that time I was in morning school, so the highest digit anyone could see on my watch was 13, LoL!
So there you have it… to save us all from confusion, if you don’t want to switch to a 24-hr time format, at least please consider NOT using 12 am/pm, okay? And in so doing, please accept my heartfelt thanks!
P/S: come back tomorrow for another edition of a saying in three ways !
kinda related - in the medical field we sometimes use the relative position of a clock-face to help describe a lesion or bump. especially with the breast exam, if the nipple is the center of the clock, one might say “2 cm firm mass at the 8 o’clock position, 1.5 cm from nipple” - and that would be in the lower-half on the patient’s right side of that breast. i was chastised by one of my preceptors on a first-day of working with her when i reported that the patient had “a mass at the 3 pm position” - she wanted to know why it was only at night.
Reminds me of that old joke we used to tell in school:
What time is it when the clock says 13 o’clock?
Time to get a new clock.
12:15 am as a quarter past noon. Ouch. Did they usually show up early or late? And did it occur to them to check their boarding times, you think?
(I fly too much, what can I say?)
I agree! I made the switch to that time for a job I had in college that required it. It is so much easier!
Thanks for your visit earlier!
Kosh: LoL!
Man in the Moon: when the clock strikes 13, I’d think it’s time to get it fixed
Ravyn: I think most people would first look at the date, then time, and somehow assume it’s “Friday noon”, not “Thursday midnight”. I know, not much of an explanation… I wasn’t one of them, after all
Mike: Do the four sections correspond to morning, afternoon, evening and night?
Kellyology: yay, always nice to have agreement
thanks for stopping by!
This has really sparked a long needed debate on this very subject. I like the idea of 24 hour time frame versus 12. It was always put to me that 24 hour time was called military time.
Hi Robin! I’ve only heard of it being called military time by US folk, actually. … one of my fave quotes from Good Morning Vietnam, with Robin Williams as the radio personality, adlibbing on and on, flitting onto something about 0600hrs (oh-six-hundred hours) - what’s the “O” stand for? “O” my gawd it’s early! … heh, that’s probably the *only* thing I really remember form the movie, LoL!