It’s “noon” and “midnight,” okay?

I’m going to say this only once. “Meridiem” means middle of the day. “Ante” means before and “post” means after. They’re all from Latin. The middle of the day, the meridiem, is noon. As in 12 noon. Ante meridiem (a.m.) is before noon. Post meridiem (p.m.) is after noon.

Noon is neither before nor after the middle of the day, neither a.m. nor p.m.: it’s exactly noon!

I know, everyone is accustomed to using 12 p.m. for noon and 12 a.m. for midnight. But I insist on saying “12 noon” and “12 midnight” instead. It’s longer to write but completely unambiguous. One could argue that both 12 a.m. and 12 p.m. refer to midnight. Many countries and the military avoid this problem completely by using a 24 hour numbering system. I’m not a fan of that but it does work.

I also know that no one will pay any attention except people who have thought about it and already use “noon” and “midnight” the same way I do. To those people I say good for you!

To everybody else, I’m just barkin’.