I would say it isn’t that stupid. The old humans picked one of the extremes, in this case the most complete absence of the sun (which includes the lowest point in the sky for some of the Vikings etc.) to mark this change. I think if they had picked midday we would have the same argument just about the daytime. And if they had picked any other time there would have to have been a “good” reason, like a religious one. It’s the time of day Mohammed went to Medina or the Buddha looked at nirvana. Otherwise the old humans wouldn’t have been onboard with that decision for centuries.
Time keeping is like the imperial system of measurements. It works but it doesn’t make a lot of fucking sense.
It’s night from sunset until dawn. And if someone said “in the morning” I would never interpret that as meaning before dawn.
It is controversial, because one definition of “morning” is dawn to noon and another is midnight to noon. And saying “night” is “sunset to midnight” is also new because you just came up with that.
But 00:01 is clearly still night. Night is typically considered from dusk til dawn.
So if we say “the night of the 2nd” then that’s from dusk til 23:59:59 of the 2nd.
Which is then followed by night that isn’t the night of the 2nd nor night of the 3rd.
And I’d say “before dawn” or “early morning” of the 3rd would be problematically ambiguous.
“early morning of the 3rd” and “before dawn of the 3rd” definitely would not become 00:00—8:00 of the 2nd, and that’s all that matters imo for the practical utility of delineating borders between days in the first place. i also like organizing things but i see absolutely no way to define “organized” for this lol
I don’t understand what you mean here, why would “before dawn of the 3rd” become 00:00-08:00 of the 2nd?
I’m saying to shift what 00:00 is, to align with dawn(ish), so that a calendar day is comprised of a contiguous day followed by a contiguous night, which is how we typically intuit about days anyways when we aren’t talking about time.
I know there are practical modern issues with this, but this is a silly post about how unsatisfying it is for the day to start at midnight
You have a choice in life. You can accept certain things you cannot change. This one, you won’t change. Even if you spearheaded a popular movement I doubt you’ll get it changed. Everybody hates DLST and we still can’t get rid of it.
So I suggest you adapt your language. You don’t talk about the night of the fifth but the night from the fifth to the sixth. Three additional syllables in this case and the confusion evaporates quickly. You’re focusing on the perceived problem and not on the solution. If you do resolutions for the new year, maybe add that point to your list.
I’ve heard people say “the wee hours of the night” to refer to time between midnight and dawn.
I think one of the reasons that there’s not a good word for that in English is because it’s the time anyone is least likely to be awake, so there’s not much reason to talk about it. And then by the time humans built enough lights to do something worthwhile at 02:00, we also had clocks and started to describe that period in reference to clock readings.
The definition of “AM” didn’t factor into anything I said, though.
You said “5am is morning”, but i said “before 5am” as in the entire time from midnight to 5am. I reminded you that “before 5am includes 00:01” which very much isn’t what people would consider to be morning.
This is a silly post about timekeeping, I’m not sure why you’re being rude about it.
I would say it isn’t that stupid. The old humans picked one of the extremes, in this case the most complete absence of the sun (which includes the lowest point in the sky for some of the Vikings etc.) to mark this change. I think if they had picked midday we would have the same argument just about the daytime. And if they had picked any other time there would have to have been a “good” reason, like a religious one. It’s the time of day Mohammed went to Medina or the Buddha looked at nirvana. Otherwise the old humans wouldn’t have been onboard with that decision for centuries.
Time keeping is like the imperial system of measurements. It works but it doesn’t make a lot of fucking sense.
I hate it, because each calendar day has two half-nights.
Like… So if you say “the night of the 5th” is that before dawn or after dusk?
If you say night of the 5th, that will mean the time from sunset to midnight on the fifth.
After that it’s morning/pre-dawn of the 6th.
This isn’t new or controversial.
It’s night from sunset until dawn. And if someone said “in the morning” I would never interpret that as meaning before dawn.
It is controversial, because one definition of “morning” is dawn to noon and another is midnight to noon. And saying “night” is “sunset to midnight” is also new because you just came up with that.
Morning and predawn are typically the times immediately surrounding dawn, not the time immediately after midnight.
If you told me “were going out to take photos at predawn” I’d assume you meant blue hour photos, not moonlit photos.
i’ve never seen someone who takes that as “before dawn”. night is after dusk, midnight’s before dawn
Right.
But 00:01 is clearly still night. Night is typically considered from dusk til dawn.
So if we say “the night of the 2nd” then that’s from dusk til 23:59:59 of the 2nd.
Which is then followed by night that isn’t the night of the 2nd nor night of the 3rd.
And I’d say “before dawn” or “early morning” of the 3rd would be problematically ambiguous.
“early morning of the 3rd” and “before dawn of the 3rd” definitely would not become 00:00—8:00 of the 2nd, and that’s all that matters imo for the practical utility of delineating borders between days in the first place. i also like organizing things but i see absolutely no way to define “organized” for this lol
I don’t understand what you mean here, why would “before dawn of the 3rd” become 00:00-08:00 of the 2nd?
I’m saying to shift what 00:00 is, to align with dawn(ish), so that a calendar day is comprised of a contiguous day followed by a contiguous night, which is how we typically intuit about days anyways when we aren’t talking about time.
I know there are practical modern issues with this, but this is a silly post about how unsatisfying it is for the day to start at midnight
You have a choice in life. You can accept certain things you cannot change. This one, you won’t change. Even if you spearheaded a popular movement I doubt you’ll get it changed. Everybody hates DLST and we still can’t get rid of it.
So I suggest you adapt your language. You don’t talk about the night of the fifth but the night from the fifth to the sixth. Three additional syllables in this case and the confusion evaporates quickly. You’re focusing on the perceived problem and not on the solution. If you do resolutions for the new year, maybe add that point to your list.
I mean, I’m having fun arguing pedantics, but this is a pretty silly post. There is no room here for real practical solutions!
The night of the 5th would be sometime after 4pm on the 5th.
What is confusing about this?
Right, but then how do you refer to before 5am on the 5th?
That’s not morning, and it’s not the night of the 4th. It’s awkward.
But more importantly, it’s ugly. It’s not how we intuit about days. It’s unsatisfying.
I’ve heard people say “the wee hours of the night” to refer to time between midnight and dawn.
I think one of the reasons that there’s not a good word for that in English is because it’s the time anyone is least likely to be awake, so there’s not much reason to talk about it. And then by the time humans built enough lights to do something worthwhile at 02:00, we also had clocks and started to describe that period in reference to clock readings.
5 am is the morning. This isn’t negotiable. You’re wrong.
00:01 isn’t the morning. This isn’t negotiable. You’re wrong.
I think you’re perhaps like… Misunderstood or poorly educated here.
A.M. doesn’t meant “morning”.
It means “ante meridian” which is Latin for “before noon”.
It’s not up for debate. You’re very thoroughly wrong.
The definition of “AM” didn’t factor into anything I said, though.
You said “5am is morning”, but i said “before 5am” as in the entire time from midnight to 5am. I reminded you that “before 5am includes 00:01” which very much isn’t what people would consider to be morning.
This is a silly post about timekeeping, I’m not sure why you’re being rude about it.
5 am is morning. Because the sun is up like 40 percent of places 40 percent of the time. But that’s not your argument.
Your argument is that midnight makes no sense.
You’re wrong. 12 noon is noon. 12 midnight is MIDDLE of the night.
Noon is when the sun is on average the highest.
Midnight is on average when the sun is the lowest.
None of this is inconsistent. It makes perfect sense. Your inability to grasp this is a personal issue.