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Grammar pedants - help please.

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Jen HB 9 Apr 9:39pm, 9 Apr 2025 3,727 posts	Quote Pin Jen HB It's confusing! I may ask my German friend... Also, for example biannual (and others)...... [Throws this into the forum and then ducks ]
paulcook 11 Apr 7:33pm, 11 Apr 2025 7,789 posts	Quote Pin paulcook Here's another one that I was thinking about when the above discussion started and I've just seen again. One of my bugbears though I don't know the proper answer. When is 12am and 12pm? And more to my thinking, why not just state 12noon and/or 12midnight instead?
GordonG 11 Apr 8:51pm, 11 Apr 2025 10,860 posts	Quote Pin GordonG 12am is midnight, 12pm is midday, I think.
paulcook 11 Apr 9:16pm, 11 Apr 2025 7,790 posts	Quote Pin paulcook GordonG wrote: I think. That's kind of my point. Language shouldn't be about inaccuracies, vagaries or open to different interpretations. It should be exact, otherwise you've not done your job surely? While there's probably very few real world examples where 12am and 12pm can be mixed up, there certainly is for the above examples of "this week", "next week". I've always just said 12noon/midday, 12midnight to avoid any confusion.
Silent Runner 11 Apr 9:29pm, 11 Apr 2025 1,075 posts	Quote Pin Silent Runner "Turn of the n-th century" is another potentially confusing one. Unless it's obvious from context, it's not clear whether it refers to the start or end of the specified century. I've just looked it up on Wikipedia, and it seems like it doesn't have a well-defined meaning: "The Chicago Manual of Style has indicated some ambiguity on the exact meaning of the phrase "turn of the n-th century". For instance, if a statement describes an event as taking place "at the turn of the 18th century", it could refer to a period around the year 1701 or around 1800, that is, the beginning or end of that century. Consequently they recommend only using "turn of the century", in a context that makes clear which transition is meant,[2] otherwise using different, unambiguous, wording."
JamieKai chameleon 11 Apr 9:46pm, 11 Apr 2025 20,491 posts	Quote Pin JamieKai chameleon GordonG wrote:12am is midnight, 12pm is midday, I think. Correct. Strictly speaking it should be 12 noon and 12 midnight (as at the strike it's neither am nor pm), but for practical purposes 12am is at night and 12pm is lunchtime if you're an early luncher
um 12 Apr 8:14am, 12 Apr 2025 9,465 posts	Quote Pin um I did have quite a big row at work, some years ago. Something had a deadline (US) of midnight on xxth Month. So I submitted my work/proposal at about midday UK time on the xxth. And told I was too late, the deadline was midnight on the 'start' of the xxth. I followed 2 routes of argument, 1) they were wrong, midnight was the end, not the start of the day and 2) it was stupid phrasing in a WW multi national company and bound to cause confusion I don't know which one won it, or they knew I was an abstinate and persistent 'opponent', so conceded the point and allowed entries for the rest of the day, Pacific time. (I did have history. On a major presentation, where all slides had to be locked in for branding compliance and accuracy checks etc 2 weeks beforehand, mine was returned with lots of spelling mistakes. I sent it straight back, with the guidance/instructions given : "All slides must be in English". I explained mine were all English, with correct English spelling, not American. I lost that one, but knew I would.)
macca 53 12 Apr 11:21am, 12 Apr 2025 33,390 posts	Quote Pin macca 53 JamieKai chameleon wrote:GordonG wrote:12am is midnight, 12pm is midday, I think. Correct. Strictly speaking it should be 12 noon and 12 midnight (as at the strike it's neither am nor pm), but for practical purposes 12am is at night and 12pm is lunchtime if you're an early luncher For “residency” purposes UK Gov counts the number of midnights you were present in the country (so in principle if you take an evening flight from a country that land in the UK at (say) 11.30pm you will quite likely be counted as resident in two countries on that day (if that is relevant for you 😁)
macca 53 12 Apr 11:26am, 12 Apr 2025 33,391 posts	Quote Pin macca 53 [I believe this is also why trains and boats and planes are never timetabled to arrive at 00.00]
paulcook 12 Apr 11:33am, 12 Apr 2025 7,792 posts	Quote Pin paulcook um’s post above made me ponder that possibility.