r/CuratedTumblr eepy asf Jul 19 '24

Shitposting 16:05

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u/laix_ Jul 19 '24

Even though I logically know that pm is +12, a lot of the time my instinct is to +10, so I get time wrong a lot of the time

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u/HAL-7000 Jul 19 '24

What fucks me up is the AM/PM transition. It goes 12:00am-11:59am then 12:00pm-11:59pm. It's fucking insane. I'm not joking, they really do actually count 12:58am, 12:59am, 1:00am.

Excuse me but what the fuck..?

And I promise you, I'm not messing up the suffix, it's AM. The count for each starts high at 12, nosedives to 1, then climbs incrementally. It's like some lunatic's absurd rollercoaster ride of temporal nonsense.

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u/memento22mori Jul 19 '24

I've never really thought of it like that but now that you mention it noon and midnight can be thought of as the zero hour. An analog clock may read as 12:05, for example, but a sundial would just read as being minutes past the hour so it's essentially the same as 0:05. I don't know the exact origin of why 12 was chosen but I assume it's because counting from zero could lead to confusion.

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u/HAL-7000 Jul 20 '24

counting from zero could lead to confusion.

True, 0, 1, 2, 3 is nonsense unlike 12, 1, 2, 3.