You know how some things are so obvious, so part of our everyday jargon that we’ve never really questioned them? Turns out – ‘AM’ and ‘PM’ aren’t just random letters that a human strung together
You know how some things are so obvious, so part of our everyday jargon that we’ve never really questioned them, much less tried to understand their origin?
If you’re one of the people who have no idea what ‘AM’ and ‘PM’ stand for, don’t worry – you’re not alone!
A seemingly innocent question recently sent the users of ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter to the internet oldies) into a site-wide meltdown and made everyone question the meaning of life and everything they’ve ever known (exaggerated, but you get the drift).
Turns out that ‘AM’ and ‘PM’ aren’t just random letters strung together to denote time. ‘AM’ is a Latin phrase that actually stands for ante merīdiem , or ‘before noon/midday,’ while ‘PM’ or post merīdiem translates to—you guessed it—‘post noon/midday.’
Curious ‘X’ user @IAMTOINEJ recently stunned the people of the internet by asking: “I might be called stupid after this, but WTF does ‘AM’ and ‘PM’ stand for?”
Now, this may be considered common knowledge to some, but his innocent question ended up schooling thousands of (chronically online) individuals.
While many users knew the meanings of the abbreviations and were happy to pass on that knowledge, several others were equally stunned and confused. One such user said: ‘I’ve never in my life thought to ask this question… lmao,’ while another added his own anecdote and shared, ‘Haha, my wife just said, “almost morning and past morning?”’
One kind ‘X-er’ said: ‘I bet 5,000 people got the answer to that question from this post, when they didn’t even have the question in them before this post. That makes it a great post. It made people think and answered the question.’
Not everyone was as nice, though. Sarcasm and ridicule were at an all-time high in the comments section, with one user stating, ‘@realDonaldTrump please do not defund education,’ while another chimed in with, ‘Wow, this gives me a great idea! What if there was some way on the internet that you could search for answers without having to ask specific people? I think a site that could do that might do very well!’
With the meaning of ‘AM’ and ‘PM’ decoded, there is the objective question of choosing which abbreviation one should use for denoting noon and midnight. Time and Date calls it the ‘main weakness of the 12-hour system,’ as neither moment can logically be defined as either ‘before’ or ‘after’ noon. Most sources worldwide tend to designate midnight as 12 AM and noon as 12 PM.
While we don’t think too many of you have been getting the concept of time wrong up until now, it’s always good to be armed with some extra knowledge.
Did you already know the meaning of ‘AM’ and ‘PM’? Let us know in the comments section.