this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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AM/PM time is another thing that needs to sink with the USA, just like the Imperial system and Fahrenheit.
EU fella here. I'm strongly pro-Metric and yet don't see a problem with 12-hour time. 24-hour is kind of clumsy to use in informal speech or chat/text, but I would use it in all other instances.
I don't think it is clumsy at all, and use it all the time when speaking.
I use 24h all the time when speaking, never got strange gazes for doing so. And I never remember which one is midday and which is midnight on the 12-hour time.
Well... it depends on the language too - although I'm not a native English speaker, I would use 12-hour in spoken English too (like I would in my native Bulgarian) - often without even appending "AM" or "PM" because it would be obvious from the context.
What's wrong with AM/PM lol. How many countries use 24h? Honesty, because I actua lly never thought about it before.
It’s extremely common in Europe. I regularly get messages with “15h”, “22h”, etc, but spoken is a bit of a mixed bag, you can usually use 12 hour time and know if it’s AM/PM from context, but sometimes you need to be specific.
Though the weirdest thing I’ve had to learn in Germany about time is, near where I live it’s common to say “one/three quarters [hour]”, instead of “quarter past/to [hour]”, so 10:15 is “one quarter 11”, and 10:45 is “three quarters 11”. It makes a little more sense when you know that “half 11” mean “half to 11”, not “half past” like is typical in English.
But quarter of 11:00 is 2:45
24-hour format when written
12-hour format when spoken
24 hour format when written
24 hour format when spoken
What is the logic for distinguishing 12AM vs 12PM? Also, you have double of every element and need 2 more sillables each to distinguish.
It's confusing and inefficient.
Get rid of Daylight Savings Time first, then we'll talk about 24 hour time.
I use 24 hour time all the time in my job, I also have to use the time zone. I'm good with converting right now.
Daylight savings.... yeah burn it to the ground and a hex on those who implemented it.
Wartime. Don't know why the hell they didn't remove it.
TIL, I always knew it had something to do with farming but a little digging revealed that it was to allow farmers to extend their work day and to conserve fuel during WW1.
Well it's been over 100 years since that war ended, I think we can safely remove daylight savings time now. I doubt Franz Ferdinand is going to be on any tours and I think The Kaiser is no longer a threat.
Right, that's another one.
Everything after midday is PM. 12:00:00.00000001 is after midday. Therefore it can only be PM.
That's the logic I use :)
I also remember there were some countries that have 12 AM mean noon, but I may be mistaken as I can't find a source
You could just as well say the opposite.
Why?
Everything before midday is AM, etc. etc.
Yeah. Which is what I said. 11:59:59.9999999 is indeed AM, jos like you said. And then comes a tiny sliver of time that is precisely at the border, but a trillionth of a picosecond after that, you're in the PM world. After the infinitely short moment that is the actual precise noon.
Sorry, I answered without giving enough thought. You are right in your reasoning of course.
Still, I find it confusing to have 2 completely different moments of the day represented by the same number.
In phrases like "After 12 PM on Monday", "Before 12 AM" etc. I always need to think an extra second.
Another example is setting automatic responder on the mail, where I need to rely on 11:59, because the date is selected before the time of day.
Have you noticed how common it is for buses and trains to leave at 23:59? The idea is to make it clear what evening the train is really running.
In Finnish we call noon "12 o'clock" and midnight "0 o'clock". Makes things a lot more clear.
And the first hour of a calendar day is indeed 0:00 until 0:59:59.99.. Since there are only 24 hours in a day, there cannot be a "24:30". (Except in internal timetables of bus companies, that typically run until 30 o'clock, as it still officially counts as the same working day)
Japan has something to say about that: 30-hour day time — clock doesn't wrap if it's a continuation of a previous day
So does Finland:
Cool, I think past midnight timetables is where this really helps a lot of people
Edit: also I completely missed the point of what was in parentheses in the original comment 😅
So you call them 2 different things. Good. Now imagine doing the same for all the other numbers in between. That is what I get by "speaking 24 hours". And it takes less sillables.
Sorry, I did understand all of the words in your comment, but not what you actually meant with it. Could you paraphrase, please?
AM/PM requires you to change the value order of numbers in your mind: for the same calendar day, hours are, in order: 12-01-02-...-10-11 AM, 12-01-02-...-10-11 PM.
In Poland we use both interchangeably. U can use whatever suits you and everyone knows just fine.