Re: Military time (whoops!)

["Paul Ambos" pambos@xxxxxxxx]

Despite Theodore Bernstein, the convention is that 12:00 a.m. is midnight,
and 12:00 p.m. noon, although style and clarity call for "midnight" or
"noon" (without any "12"). Universal Military Time prefers "0000" for
midnight, and this is typically displayed on military-time watches, although
"2400" is in fairly common usage by many.

Not a life and death issue.

Regards,

Paul Ambos
pambos@xxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xywrite@xxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-xywrite@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of flash@xxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 10:06 AM
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
Subject: AW: Re: Military time (whoops!)

≪midnight (2400--or is it 0000?) is midnight, not a.m.
or p.m., and is conventionally counted in the day just
finishing: midnight/2400 Wednesday. If mil time is in
fact 0000, it would make more sense to count it with
the next day; but Theodore Bernstein (late copy chief
of the NYTimes, and author of The Careful
Writer, one of the basic references for copy
editors) insists it's counted with the dying day, not
the new-born one. ≫

For anyone traveling by rail in Europe, two minutes after 23:49 (nearly
midnight) is 00:01 the next day.