Dec 12 2007
Lunch at Midnight
A young, single accountant got an e-mail from his attractive boss at the downtown office. She wrote, “Can we meet here at 12 a.m.?” The accountant, excited and dressed in his best, made the trip into town at midnight that night only to find theoffice dark and empty. The next day his boss asked why he didn’t come to her office at noon the day before.
Obviously, his boss had made the old 12 a.m./12 p.m. mistake and he was too embarrassed to admit he thought she really meant midnight. She made a mistake. He looked bad.
Fill in the following blanks with either “noon” or “midnight”:
_________ is 12 a.m.
_________ is 12 p.m.
You should have written “midnight” in the first blank and “noon” in the second. Okay, you already knew that. But did you have to think about it, if just for a millisecond? Do you ever have to break the flow of your reading when accosted by a “12 a.m.” or “12 p.m.”? That’s the reason for the following rule:
RULE: Write out “noon” instead of 12 p.m., and “midnight” instead of 12 a.m.
This rule can help you avoid some potentially embarrassing situations.
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