I have always though of mid day as noon or 12:00. However got a sales call today at an inauspicious time. I asked them to call back at mid day but salesperson needed me to stipulate the exact time as "mid day is a different time for different people". Apparently.
So what time do you think mid day is? Can it be variable?
For me mid-day is 12 noon.
'Lunchtime' is the variable.
From the OED
Midday:
NOUN
The middle of the day; noon:
Also
NOUN
noon, twelve noon, twelve midday, twelve o'clock, high noon, noontide, noontime, noonday, twelve hundred, twelve hundred hours
I'd say "midday" is [i]around [/i]12 noon. I wouldn't expect a midday phone call bang on 12, could be a bit earlier or later. Broadly synonymous with "lunchtime" I suppose.
ah yes, but midday in France is only 11.00 in UK
Ok, good to know I'm not losing the plot. There was no chat about lunchtimes and it was a UK based Co so no time zone issues.
around half a day after midnight :p
Midday is 12 noon.
But personally if you asked me to [i]"call back at midday"[/i] then I'd assume you meant [i]"around the middle of the day"[/i] and not precisely 12.
So I can kind of see his point.
If I asked someone to call back its always 'around' a time, so I'd say around midday, or around noon, because I'd assume that the caller may have other calls that could take more or less time than an average, and I may not be in a position to take a call at an exact time.
Asking for a fixed time as 'midday is different for different people' seems very pedantic.
The person asking is a moron. Midday is 12:00. 'Around midday' is 11:55 to 12:05.
But is it AM or PM?
But is it AM or PM?
Exactly midday is neither AM or PM. It is just M.
But given that midday - 1 yoctosecond is AM and midday + 1 yoctosecond is PM it's really hard to spot that on your average watch 😀
I believe the reply is
If you are to stupid to work it out dont call me back
But is it AM or PM?
Generally...........
Midnight is quoted as PM and noon as AM
Generally...........Midnight is quoted as PM and noon as AM
Sure?
It's the other way around, isn't it? Noon is, desperately confusingly, 12pm.
Thinking about it, it's not am/pm which it's the issue. Rather, the 12 on a clock face really should be a zero.
It's the other way around, isn't it? Noon is, desperately confusingly, 12pm.
I'd say so yes.
As I hinted at above, [i]exactly[/i] 12:00 Meridian is a theoretical infinitely small point in time.
By definition any point you can imagine immediately before it would have to be 11:59:59.999999999999999999...... and therefore AM.
Any point immediately after would be 12:00:00.00000000000000...........1 so PM
I won't get into the mid day issue, but would like to mention that there is no midnight in the forces, it's either 23:59hrs or 00:01hrs, I guess to stop confusion for just this reason as to which day is meant!
Midnight is quoted as PM and noon as AM
I think you mean misquoted.
And why is it called a 24 hour clock when it only goes to 23:59?
It's when the sun is at it's highest point. So it depends where you live.