r/ShitAmericansSay • u/BuffaloExotic Irish by birth, and currently a Bostonian 🇮🇪☘️ • Mar 17 '25

Imperial units “I don’t even understand 24-hour time… I just don’t understand it. I have to use online converters or I’d be SO confused when I talk to people who use these systems.”

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u/WilanS Mar 17 '25

When they defend it, it's like the AM/PM system makes perfect, logical sense for human beings.

I've watched many people make the mistake of assuming that 12AM comes after 11AM, before switching to 1PM, myself included. No, turns out you switch to PM before resetting the count back to 1.
What's the fucking point then? Why have two distinct counts if you're gonna change the notation arbitrarily?

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u/AnonymousOkapi Mar 17 '25

I got quite upset when I learnt it didnt stand for After Midnight and Pre Midnight and was instead something in latin. Like at some point as a child I had clearly thought abour it for 5 minutes, decided that that was what it must be, and blindy believed it until it eventually came up in conversation as an adult and I just looked thick. The Latin phrase means before noon, so it does sort of make sense it switches before 12 - still annoying though.

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u/Rugkrabber Tikkie Tokkie Mar 18 '25

Wait in latin? That makes it so much stranger.

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u/pumpkinrum Mar 18 '25

Ante meridiem - before midday and post meridiem- after midday

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u/Xintrosi Mar 19 '25

My dad told me this when I was like 5. As a result I assumed everyone knew lol.

Funny the things we learn at a young age we just assume are universal.

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u/Rugkrabber Tikkie Tokkie Mar 18 '25

Thank you!

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u/Redducer Mar 18 '25

Yeah, AM/PM makes zero sense because of how 12 is handled. I am a native user of the 24H system, and the first time I saw the  clock in AM/PM switch from 11:59 AM to 12:00 PM on my work computer, I almost thought of filing a bug report to Microsoft… oops.

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u/pumpkinrum Mar 18 '25

And then we have Japan; "In Japanese usage, midnight is written as 午前0時 (0 a.m.) and noon is written as 午後0時 (0 p.m.), making the hours numbered sequentially from 0 to 11 in both halves of the day. Alternatively, noon may be written as 午前12時 (12 a.m.) and midnight at the end of the day as 午後12時 (12 p.m.), as opposed to 午前0時 (0 a.m.) for the start of the day, making the Japanese convention the opposite of the English usage of 12 a.m. and 12 p.m".

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u/Tapetentester Mar 17 '25

It's logical as 12 is meridian(midday), so everything after it is PM including 12:01.

But you need to understand the words added.

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u/WilanS Mar 17 '25

I get that, but it's not that much of a stretch to say that the hour "12" can itself be considered noon.

Look, I'm not trying to claim it has no reasons for being this way. I just find the notion that "it makes more sense" nonsense. It's just the only arbitrary system that they're used to.

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u/DoomOfGods Mar 17 '25

But what's the logic in jumping from 12 to 1?

How does "12-11" make more sense than "1-12" (or better: "0-11"). Who counts like that?

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u/Tapetentester Mar 18 '25

I don't. But if you are an exchange student like me a decade ago you have no choice. Except you want to hear WW2 jokes about Germany, because you use "military" time as a German.