Quick, is 12 a.m. noon or midnight? What about 12 p.m., is that midnight or noon?

Don’t know the answer? Don’t feel stupid, most readers won’t either.

And that’s a good reason to not use either term. Doing so is akin to including words from a foreign language that your readers wouldn’t know.

Instead, use noon or midnight.

Incidentally, 12 a.m. is midnight, and 12 p.m. is noon.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.