12-hour clock

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
The 12-hour clock is a time convention in which Clock system
the 24 hours of the day are divided into two 12-hour 24-hour
periods:[1] a.m. (from the Latin, ante meridiem,
Midnight (start of day)
meaning before midday) and p.m. (post meridiem, 12 midnight 00:00
meaning after midday).[2] Each period consists of 12 12:00 a.m.[a]
hours numbered: 12 (acting as zero),[3] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
12:01 a.m. 00:01
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. The 24 hour/day cycle starts
at 12 midnight (often indicated as 12 a.m.), runs 1:00 a.m. 01:00
through 12 noon (often indicated as 12 p.m.), and 11:00 a.m. 11:00
continues to the midnight at the end of the day. 11:59 a.m. 11:59
12 noon
The 12-hour clock was developed over time from 12:00
12:00 p.m.[a]
the mid-second millennium BC to the 16th century 12:01 p.m. 12:01
AD.
1:00 p.m. 13:00
11:00 p.m. 23:00
Contents 11:59 p.m. 23:59
Midnight (end of day) 24:00
[hide] shown as start of next day
1. ^ Jump up to: a b See Confusion
 1 History and use at noon and midnight
o 1.1 Use by country
o 1.2 Computer support
 2 Abbreviations
 3 Related conventions
o 3.1 Typography
 3.1.1 Encoding
o 3.2 Informal speech and rounding off
o 3.3 Formal speech and times to the minute
 4 Confusion at noon and midnight
 5 See also
 6 References
 7 External links

History and use[edit]

Exeter Cathedral Astronomical Clock, showing the double-XII numbering scheme

The natural day/night division of a calendar day forms the fundamental basis as to why each
day is split into two cycles. Originally there were two cycles; one cycle which could be
tracked by the position of the Sun (day) followed by one cycle which could be tracked by the
Moon and stars (night). This would eventually evolve into the two 12-hour periods that
started at midnight (a.m.) and noon (p.m.) which are used today. Noon itself is rarely
abbreviated today, but if it is, it is denoted M.[1]

The 12-hour clock can be traced back as far as Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt.[4] Both an
Egyptian sundial for daytime use[5] and an Egyptian water clock for night-time use were
found in the tomb of Pharaoh Amenhotep I.[6] Dating to c. 1500 BC, these clocks divided their
respective times of use into 12 hours each.

The Romans also used a 12-hour clock: daylight was divided into 12 equal hours (thus hours
having varying length throughout the year) and the night was divided into four watches.

The first mechanical clocks in the 14th century, if they had dials at all, showed all 24 hours,
used the 24-hour analog dial, influenced by astronomers' familiarity with the astrolabe and
sundial, and their desire to model the Earth's apparent motion around the Sun. In Northern
Europe these dials generally used the 12-hour numbering scheme in Roman numerals, but
showed both a.m. and p.m. periods in sequence. This is known as the double-XII system, and
can be seen on many surviving clock faces, such as those at Wells and Exeter.

Elsewhere in Europe, particularly in Italy, numbering was more likely to be based on the 24-
hour system (I to XXIV), reflecting the Italian style of counting the hours. The 12-hour clock
was used throughout the British empire.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, the 12-hour analog dial and time system gradually
became established as standard throughout Northern Europe for general public use. The 24-
hour analog dial was reserved for more specialized applications, such as astronomical clocks
and chronometers.

Most analog clocks and watches today use the 12-hour dial, on which the shorter hour hand
rotates once every 12 hours and twice in one day. Some analog clock dials have an inner ring
of numbers along with the standard 1-to-12 numbered ring. The number 12 is paired either
with a 00 or a 24, while the numbers 1 through 11 are paired with the numbers 13 through 23,
respectively. This modification allows the clock to be read also in the 24-hour notation. This
kind of 12-hour clock can be found in countries where the 24-hour clock is preferred.

Use by country[edit]

Main article: Date and time representation by country

A typical analog 12-hour clock

In several countries the 12-hour clock is the dominant written and spoken system of time.
Other countries use the 12-hour clock mainly in spoken time, while the 24-hour notation is
written. In most countries the 12-hour clock is used in speech alongside the 24-hour clock.

The 12-hour clock in speech often uses phrases such as in the morning, in the afternoon, in
the evening, and at night. Outside of English-speaking countries, the terms a.m. and p.m. are
seldom used and often unknown. In England, the descriptive phrases were universal until
relatively recently; e.g., Rider's British Merlin almanac for 1795 (published in London)[7] uses
them, and so does a similar almanac for 1773.

A typical digital 12-hour alarm clock indicating p.m. with a dot to the left of the hour

Computer support[edit]

In most countries, computers by default show the time in 24-hour notation. Most operating
systems, including Microsoft Windows and Unix-like systems such as Linux and macOS,
activate the 12-hour notation by default for a limited number of language and region settings.
The behaviour can be changed by the user, for example in Windows 7 "Region and
Language" settings. In Windows, AM/PM notations are independent of 12 or 24 hour
numbering, allowing the clock to display 16:18:12 PM, for example.[8]

Abbreviations[edit]
The Latin abbreviations a.m. and p.m. (often written "am" and "pm", "AM" and "PM", or
"A.M." and "P.M.") are used in English and Spanish.[9] The equivalents in Greek are π.µ. and
µ.µ., respectively, and in Sinhala පෙ.ව. (pe.va.) for පෙරවරු (peravaru, පෙර pera - fore,
pre) and ෙ.ව. (pa.va.) for ෙස්වරු (pasvaru, ෙස්පස් passē - after, post). However, noon is
rarely abbreviated in any of these languages, noon normally being written in full. In
Portuguese, there are two official options and many other used, for example (using 21:45
pm): 21h45 or 21h45min (official ones) or 21:45 or 9:45 p.m.

Most other languages lack formal abbreviations for "before noon" and "after noon", and their
users use the 12-hour clock only orally and informally.[citation needed] However, in many languages,
such as Russian and Hebrew, informal designations are used, such as "9 in the morning" or "3
in the night".

When abbreviations and phrases are omitted, one may rely on sentence context and societal
norms to reduce ambiguity. For example, if one schedules an appointment with a doctor at
"9:00", one may mean 9:00 am, but if a social dance is scheduled to begin at "9:00", it may
begin at 9:00 p.m.

Related conventions[edit]
Typography[edit]

The terms "a.m." and "p.m." are abbreviations of the Latin ante meridiem (before midday)
and post meridiem (after midday). Depending on the style guide referenced, the abbreviations
"a.m." and "p.m." are variously written in small capitals ("AM" and "PM"), uppercase letters
("AM" and "PM"), or lowercase letters ("am" and "pm").

Some stylebooks suggest the use of a space between the number and the a.m. or p.m.
abbreviation.[citation needed] Style guides recommend not using a.m. and p.m. without a time
preceding it,[10] although doing so can be advantageous when describing an event that always
happens before or after noon.

The hour/minute separator varies between countries: some use a colon, others use a period
(full stop).

Encoding[edit]

There are symbols for:

 "a.m." U+33C2 ㏂ (HTML ㏂) and

 "p.m." U+33D8 ㏘ (HTML ㏘) in Unicode.
They are meant to be used only with Chinese-Japanese-Korean character sets, however, as
they take up exactly the same space as one Chinese character.

Informal speech and rounding off[edit]

It is common to round a time to the nearest five minutes and express the time as so many
minutes past an hour (e.g., 5:05 is "five past five" or "five oh five", formerly written as 5.5 in
some publications in the UK[11]) or minutes to an hour (e.g., 5:55 is "five to six"). The period
15 minutes is often expressed as "a quarter" (hence 5:15 is "a quarter past five") and 30
minutes is expressed as "half" (hence 5:30 is "half past five" or merely "half five"). The time
8:45 is spoken as "(a) quarter to (or of, before, or til) nine".[12] Moreover, in situations where
the relevant hour is obvious or has been recently mentioned, speakers can state simply
"quarter to", "half past", etc., to avoid elaborate sentences in particularly informal
conversations. This form is also used in television and radio broadcasts that cover multiple
time zones which are at one-hour intervals.

Instead of meaning 5:30, the "half five" expression is sometimes used to mean 4:30, i.e.,
"half-way to five", especially in the more German-influenced parts of the U.S.A (the
Midwest, essentially). The "half-way to five" meaning follows the usage in many Germanic
and Slavic languages and in Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Indonesian[citation needed] and
Swedish.

Formal speech and times to the minute[edit]

Minutes may be expressed as an exact number of minutes past the hour specifying the time of
day (e.g., 6:32 p.m. is "six thirty-two"); when expressing the time using the "past (after)" or
"to (before)" formula, it is conventional to choose the number of minutes below 30 (e.g., 6.32
pm is conventionally "twenty-eight minutes to seven" rather than "thirty-two minutes past
six").

Times of day ending in ":00" minutes (full hours) are often said in English as the numbered
hour followed by o'clock (10:00 as ten o'clock, 2:00 as two o'clock). This may be followed by
the "a.m." or "p.m." designator, though phrases such as in the morning, in the afternoon, in
the evening, or at night more commonly follow analog-style terms such as o'clock, half past
three, and quarter to four. O'clock itself may be omitted, telling a time as four a.m. or four
p.m. Minutes ":01" to ":09" are usually pronounced as oh one to oh nine (nought or zero can
also be used instead of oh). Minutes ":10" to ":59" are pronounced as their usual number-
words. For instance, 6:02 a.m. can be pronounced six oh two a.m.; 6:32 a.m. could be told as
six thirty-two a.m.

Confusion at noon and midnight[edit]

 Time as denoted by various devices or styles
Midnight Midnight
Device or style Noon
Start of day End of day
Written 24-hour time,
00:00 12:00 24:00
including ISO 8601
24-hour digital clocks 00:00 12:00 — [a]
12-hour digital clocks,
12:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m. — [a]
with a.m. and p.m.
Written 12-hour time[b] 12:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m.
12 midnight
(most common forms) 12 midnight 12 noon
U.S. Government Printing
12 a.m. 12 p.m. —
Office[13]
U.S. Government Printing
— 12:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m.
Office (1953)
Japanese legal convention[dubious – 0:00 a.m. 12:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m.
discuss][14]

Unusual 12:00 m.[15]

Canadian Press, UK standard,
Midnight Noon Midnight
NIST1[b]
NIST2[b] 12:00 midnight 12:00 noon 12:00 midnight
Associated Press Style[16] 12:01 a.m. Noon —
U.S. de facto legal 12:01 a.m. — 11:59 p.m.
Midnight Midnight
Encyclopædia Britannica[1] 12M
December 11–12 December 12–13
1. ^ Jump up to: a b Digital clocks usually do not reach midnight at the end of the day.
Instead they wrap from 11:59 p.m. or 23:59 to midnight at the start of the next day.
Likewise the written 12-hour style wraps immediately to the start of the next day.
2. ^ Jump up to: a b c These styles are ambiguous with respect to whether midnight is at the
start and or end of each day.

It is not always clear what times "12:00 a.m." and "12:00 p.m." denote. From the Latin words
meridies (midday), ante (before) and post (after), the term ante meridiem (a.m.) means before
midday and post meridiem (p.m.) means after midday. Since strictly speaking "noon"
(midday - meridies (m.)) is neither before nor after itself, the terms a.m. and p.m. do not
apply.[17] Although "12 m." would be a logically consistent way to indicate noon, this is
seldom done (and so risks misunderstanding), and it does not resolve the question of how to
indicate midnight.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language has a usage note on this topic:
"By convention, 12 AM denotes midnight and 12 PM denotes noon. Because of the potential
for confusion, it is advisable to use 12 noon and 12 midnight."[18]

E. G. Richards in his book Mapping Time provided a diagram in which 12 a.m. means noon
and 12 p.m. means midnight.[19]

Many U.S. style guides, and NIST's "Frequently asked questions (FAQ)" web page,[17]
recommend that it is clearest if one refers to "noon" or "12:00 noon" and "midnight" or
"12:00 midnight" (rather than to "12:00 p.m." and "12:00 a.m."). The NIST website explicitly
states that "12 a.m. and 12 p.m. are ambiguous and should not be used."

The Canadian Press Stylebook (11th Edition, 1999, page 288) says, "write noon or midnight,
not 12 noon or 12 midnight." Phrases such as "12 a.m." and "12 p.m." are not mentioned at
all. Britain's National Physical Laboratory "FAQ-Time" web page[20] states "In cases where
the context cannot be relied upon to place a particular event, the pair of days straddling
midnight can be quoted"; also "the terms 12 a.m. and 12 p.m. should be avoided."

Likewise, some U.S. style guides recommend either clarifying "midnight" with other context
clues, such as specifying the two dates between which it falls, or not referring to midnight at
all. For an example of the latter method, "midnight" is replaced with "11:59 p.m." for the end
of a day or "12:01 a.m." for the start of a day. That has become common in the United States
in legal contracts and for airplane, bus, or train schedules, though some schedules use other
conventions. Occasionally, when trains run at regular intervals, the pattern may be broken at
midnight by displacing the midnight departure one or more minutes, such as to 23:59 or
00:01.[21]

The 24-hour clock notation avoids these ambiguities by using 00:00 for midnight at the start
of the day and 12:00 for noon and 24:00 for midnight at the end of a day.

In Britain, various conventions are employed. For instance, on 17 December 2005 The Sun
(London) newspaper's TV magazine used "noon (12.00)" and "midnight (0.00)" in individual
listings. Sequential listings started with a.m. or p.m. as appropriate, but these indicators were
not used again, although in sub-listings "12midnight" was sometimes employed. On the same
date, London's The Daily Telegraph used "12.00noon" and "12.00midnight" in individual
listings. In sequential listings the first programme to start after 12.00 was marked "am" or
"pm" as appropriate.

See also[edit]
 24-hour clock
 30-hour clock
 Clock position
 Date and time representation by country
 Decimal time
 Midnight
 Noon
 Thai six-hour clock

References[edit]
1. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Time". The New Encyclopædia Britannica. 28. 1986. pp. 660 2a.
"Time". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition.
Retrieved 20 November 2013. (subscription required)
"The use of AM or PM to designate either noon or midnight can cause ambiguity. To
designate noon, either the word noon or 1200 or 12 M should be used. To designate midnight
without causing ambiguity, the two dates between which it falls should be given unless the
24-hour notation is used. Thus, midnight may be written: May 15–16 or 2400 May 15 or 0000
May 16."
 2. Jump up ^ "National Institute of Standards and Technology's Physics Laboratory, Times of
Day FAQs". Retrieved 20 September 2016.
3. Jump up ^ Susan Addington (25 August 2016). "Modular Arithmetic". Archived from the
original on 4 July 2008. Retrieved 28 November 2008.
4. Jump up ^ The History of Clocks
5. Jump up ^ Berlin instruments of the old Egyptian time of day destination
6. Jump up ^ A Walk through Time - Water Clocks
7. Jump up ^ National Library of Australia catalogue entry for Rider's British merlin: for the
year of Our Lord God 1795
8. Jump up ^ Lawrence Abrams (13 December 2012). "How to customize how the time is
displayed in Windows". Bleeping Computer. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
9. Jump up ^ Diccionario panhispánico de dudas, HORA (Spanish)
10. Jump up ^ Hacker, Diana, A Writer's Reference, six edition, Bedford, St Martin's, Boston,
2007, section M4-c, p.308.
11. Jump up ^ "TVTimes". 21–27 May 1983. Retrieved 22 April 2012.
12. Jump up ^ American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992). s.v.
usage note at end of "quarter" entry.
13. Jump up ^ U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual: Chapter 12 - Numerals
14. Jump up ^ http://jjy.nict.go.jp/QandA/FAQ/12am-or-0pm-J.html
15. Jump up ^ Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). University of Chicago Press. 2010.
paragraph 9.29. Although noon can be expressed as 12:00 m. (m = meridies), very few use
that form.
16. Jump up ^ Ed. Norm Goldstein, The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media
Law: with Internet Guide and Glossary, P.161, 177, Perseus Publishing, 2002, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, United States, LCCN 2002105974, ISBN, 0-7382-0740-3
17. ^ Jump up to: a b "Times of day, Frequently asked questions (FAQ)". National Institute of
Standards and Technology. 18 January 2011. Archived from the original on 2012-05-14.
Retrieved 3 May 2012.
18. Jump up ^ AM at the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition
(2011)
19. Jump up ^ Richards, E. G., Mapping Time: the Calendar and its History (Oxford University
Press, 1999), 289.
20. Jump up ^ National Physical Laboratory, FAQ-Time
21. Jump up ^ Interim train timetables, Abellio Greater Anglia, London, 17 May 2015, pages 7
and 8.

External links[edit]
 NIST FAQ on time
 12am is noon in Japan

[show]

 v
 t
 e

Time


 UTC
 UT
 TAI
 Unit of time
 Planck time
 Second
 Minute
 Hour
 Day
Chronometry
 Week
 Month
 Year
 Decade
 Century
 Millennium
 Tropical year
 Sidereal year

 Time zone
 12-hour clock
 24-hour clock
 Daylight saving time
Measurement  Solar time
systems  Sidereal time
 Metric time
 Decimal time
 Hexadecimal time

 Gregorian
Calendars  Julian
 Hebrew
  Islamic
 Lunar
 Solar Hijri
 Mayan
 Intercalation
 Leap second
 Leap year

 Chronology 
 History

 Religion 
 Mythology

 Geological time
o age
o chron
o eon
o epoch
Geology
o era
o period
 Geochronology
 Geological history of Earth

 Absolute time and space

 Arrow of time
Physics
 Chronon
 Coordinate time
  Imaginary time
 Planck epoch
 Planck time
 Proper time
 Rate
 Spacetime
 Theory of relativity
 Time dilation
o gravitational
 Time domain
 T-symmetry

 Chronological dating
 Chronobiology
other
 Circadian rhythms
subject
 Dating methodologies in archaeology
areas
 Time geography

[show]

 v
 t
 e

Time measurement and standards


 

<img src="//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAutoLogin/start?type=1x1" alt="" title=""

width="1" height="1" style="border: none; position: absolute;" />
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=12-
hour_clock&oldid=758726341"
Categories:

 Date and time representation

 Time measurement systems

Hidden categories:

 Pages containing links to subscription-only content

 Articles with Spanish-language external links
 All articles with unsourced statements
 Articles with unsourced statements from December 2007
 Articles with unsourced statements from March 2011
 Articles with unsourced statements from September 2014
 All accuracy disputes
 Articles with disputed statements from November 2015

Navigation menu
Personal tools

 Not logged in
 Talk
  Contributions
 Create account
 Log in

Namespaces

 Article
 Talk

Variants

Views

 Read
 Edit
 View history

More

Search

Navigation

 Main page
 Contents
 Featured content
 Current events
 Random article
 Donate to Wikipedia
 Wikipedia store

Interaction

 Help
 About Wikipedia
 Community portal
 Recent changes
 Contact page

Tools

 What links here

 Related changes
 Upload file
 Special pages
 Permanent link
  Page information
 Wikidata item
 Cite this page

Print/export

 Create a book
 Download as PDF
 Printable version

Languages

 ‫العربية‬
 Беларуская (тарашкевіца)
 Български
 Cebuano
 Dansk
 Deutsch
 Español
 Français
 ‫עברית‬
 മലയാളം
 Bahasa Melayu
 Nederlands
 日本語
 Polski
 Português
 Русский
 Simple English
 Ślůnski
 Svenska
 ‫اردو‬
 粵語
 中文

Edit links

 This page was last modified on 7 January 2017, at 05:06.

 Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;
additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and
Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation,
Inc., a non-profit organization.

 Privacy policy
 About Wikipedia
 Disclaimers
 Contact Wikipedia
 Developers
 Cookie statement
 Mobile view