[conspire] Ti-i-i-ime, is on my side, yes it is

[Nick Moffitt]

On 10Mar2020 11:10pm (-0700), Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):
> > By that logic, would '1 AM' mean one hour before noon, what non Latin
> > speakers would call 11 AM?
> 
> I'd say the semantics are not _quite_ that mechanistic.  '1 AM' is
> construed to mean 'one hour forward into the time block leading to noon'.

Let's not forget that clocks were such a novel intrusion into daily life that specifying time "of the clock" was worth commenting on for centuries.  We still use the contraction "o'clock" to refer to even times on the hour.

When you say or write "1 AM" you are saying "The time is one, on the clock, before noon."  But who could be bothered to say that every time?  So we say "One o'clock AM" or just "1 AM".