answersLogoWhite

0

"Morning."

The abbreviations AM and PM stand for Ante Meridian and Post Meridian, respectively. The terms ante and post mean before and after. The term meridian refers to when the sun is at the middle of its arc across the sky.

Nominally the sun is at its meridian at noon. Since it is *at* its meridian this is neither before nor after the meridian. It *is* the meridian.

Likewise, midnight is neither 12 AM nor 12 PM. It is equally far from both. It is simply 12 midnight.

The military clock is better than the civilian clock for many reasons. One is that eliminates the complexity of specifically accounting for whether a time is before of after midnight. On the military clock noon is read as 1200 hours, and midnight is read as 2400 hours.

User Avatar

Wiki User

14y ago

What else can I help you with?