>>And what about the contradictory noon? "12 PM" is "twelve hours post meridiem", ie "twelve hours after the noon". And midnight is "12 AM", "twelve hours ante meridiem", i.e. "twelve hours before the noon" which is only accidentally right, because "1 AM" would then be at 11:00, "2 AM" at 10:00 etc. Now if we think of AM as "in the first half of the day" and PM as "in the second half of the day", again the noon is not the 12th hour of the other half, and 12AM is not the 12th hour of the first.
>
>Errrrrrr .... yeah? Interesting - I never thought of it that way.
>
>OTOH wrong or right this is a standard convention that's recognised. We're talking tautology here, which isn't forced by the convention.

I'm only poking at the ridiculousness of the convention (which I once spent three turns to get the code to display the times right for American eyes). It was probably just the fashion of using Latin with neither knowing nor caring what the used Latin exactly means.

Just like they have "subpoenaed" a witness... what, "underpunished"? Because "sub poena" means literally that, "under punishment".