Is 12 noon am or pm?

Answer 1

In United States, noon is often called "12:00 p.m." and midnight "12:00 a.m." With this convention, thinking of "12" as "0" makes the system logical. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition, 2000) has a similar usage note on this topic: "Strictly speaking, 12 a.m. denotes midnight, and 12 p.m. denotes noon, but there is sufficient confusion over these uses to make it advisable to use 12 noon and 12 midnight where clarity is required.

Answer 2

It's neither 12AM nor 12PM. Those are improper terms.

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

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

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.

Answer 3

It's technically neither, since ante meridiem (AM) means before the middle of the day, and post meridiem (PM) means after the middle of the day.

A second before noon is 11:59:59 AM, and a second after noon is 12:00:01 PM.

Answer 4

Neither. The designation is 12 noon.

Answer 5

Neither one