AM and PM in English: Learn the difference and how to use them
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 6:34 am
Do you know how to tell the time in English? Is it 2 am or 2 pm? If we have to distinguish between each of the 12-hour periods into which we divide the day, am and pm in English are very useful to distinguish the hours of the morning from those of the afternoon and night. It's 4 pm! Time to study English!
AM and PM in English: What do they mean?
Whether or not you know how to use AM and PM correctly in English, you lebanon phone number list have wondered what their true origin is and what these acronyms mean.
AM and PM in English come from Latin: am or am is short for ante meridiem , before noon (before the meridian), and pm or pm means post meridiem , after noon.
This distinction is very effective in knowing whether we are referring to the first 12 hours of the day or the following 12 hours, after 12 noon . In this way, in addition to avoiding misunderstandings, the hour system from 1 to 24 is not used, which can be more forced in oral speech. For example, saying in English that We will have a meeting at fourteen is not as common as expressing it like this: We will have a meeting at two AM
Both ways are correct and everyone will understand us with both, but without using am and pm in English it can seem like we are using a “military” way of telling the time.
AM and PM Tricks in English
As we have said above, the acronym AM refers to the first twelve hours of the day, starting at midnight:
Twelve o'clock at night would be 12 am
Am and Pm in English are built into commonly used digital clocks.
In writing, and when we do not want to distort or confuse the times at which an event occurred, as in a newspaper report, we may prefer to avoid am and pm and rely on the 24-hour system, also known as military time.
AM and PM in English: What do they mean?
Whether or not you know how to use AM and PM correctly in English, you lebanon phone number list have wondered what their true origin is and what these acronyms mean.
AM and PM in English come from Latin: am or am is short for ante meridiem , before noon (before the meridian), and pm or pm means post meridiem , after noon.
This distinction is very effective in knowing whether we are referring to the first 12 hours of the day or the following 12 hours, after 12 noon . In this way, in addition to avoiding misunderstandings, the hour system from 1 to 24 is not used, which can be more forced in oral speech. For example, saying in English that We will have a meeting at fourteen is not as common as expressing it like this: We will have a meeting at two AM
Both ways are correct and everyone will understand us with both, but without using am and pm in English it can seem like we are using a “military” way of telling the time.
AM and PM Tricks in English
As we have said above, the acronym AM refers to the first twelve hours of the day, starting at midnight:
Twelve o'clock at night would be 12 am
Am and Pm in English are built into commonly used digital clocks.
In writing, and when we do not want to distort or confuse the times at which an event occurred, as in a newspaper report, we may prefer to avoid am and pm and rely on the 24-hour system, also known as military time.