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The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language states "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". [34] E. G. Richards in his book Mapping Time (1999) provided a diagram in which 12 a.m. means noon and 12 p.m. means midnight. [35]
12 (noon) is normally 12 PM for the whole afternoon hour between 12:00 and 12:59. 13..23 (afternoon and start of night) is unambiguously 01..11 PM. 24 (midnight at end of day) is normally 12 AM (but the date must be adjusted when using the 12-hour format).
Noon (also known as noontime or midday) is 12 o'clock in the daytime. It is written as 12 noon, 12:00 m. (for meridiem, literally 12:00 midday), 12 p.m. (for post meridiem, literally "after midday"), 12 pm, or 12:00 (using a 24-hour clock) or 1200 (military time). Solar noon is the time when the Sun appears to contact the local celestial meridian.
The English term noon is also derived from the ninth hour. This was a period of prayer initially held at three in the afternoon but eventually moved back to midday for unknown reasons. [12] The change of meaning was complete by around 1300. [13] The terms a.m. and p.m. are still used in the 12-hour clock, as opposed to the 24-hour clock.
Solar midnight is the time opposite to solar noon, when the Sun is closest to the nadir, and the night is equidistant from sunset and sunrise. Due to the advent of time zones, which regularize time across a range of meridians, and daylight saving time, solar midnight rarely coincides with 12
It appears that in the original 12 hour time "system" the anti meridiem and post meridiem refer to hours past the hour of noon (the meridiem), therefore 12 noon was neither am nor pm and midnight was both 12 hours anti meridiem and 12 hours post meridiem. Perhaps this is why there is so much confusion.
Every digital clock that uses am/pm assumes that 12:00 am is midnight and 12:00 pm is noon. It is the de facto convention, and rightly so. I have seen increasing use of 12:00 pm in signs and notices and such to mean noon and never the other way around. The American Heritage dictionary says 12:00 am is midnight and 12:00 pm is noon.
German (Gallic) hours (half-dial): 2×12 hour system starting at midnight and restarted at noon. It is typical with the 12-hour dial with 12 at the top. The modern 24-hour system is a late-19th century adaptation of the German midnight-starting system, and then prevailed in the world with the exception of some Anglophone countries.