They’re finally putting social media to good use — and it’s about time.
Ticking the day away on apps like X has recently become somewhat of an educational activity as fans of the platform are just now learning the significance of “am” and “pm.”
“I might be called stupid after this, but WTF does ‘AM’ and ‘PM’ stand for?” asked X user @IAMTOINEJ in a tweet that’s garnered over 21 million views.
It’s a query he took to the platform — formerly known as Twitter — amid the buzzy Gen Z trend toward gathering information from social media sites rather than search engines like Google.
And much to the clueless guy’s surprise, most folks online who replied, too, had no clue what the shorthand means.
“After midnight and past midnight,” guessed a baffled commenter.
“Ahh (it’s) Morning” & “Period (it’s) Midnight,” another teased.
“I’ve never in my life thought to ask this question,” admitted an equally puzzled spectator.
Well, here’s the answer in plain English — the abbreviations are rooted in Latin.
Both am and pm stands for the Latin phrases “ante meridiem,” which means before midday, and “post meridiem” meaning after midday.
In countries such as the US and Canada, each day is divided into two 12-hour periods, during which am refers to the hours between midnight and noon, and pm covers the hours from noon to midnight.
“The main weakness of the 12-hour system is a widespread confusion about which abbreviation should be used for noon and midnight,” say the experts, “neither moment can logically be identified as before noon (am) or after noon (pm).”
But am and pm aren’t the only time-related elisions that have left digital dopes stumped.
The “o” in “o’clock” has also sent cyberspace spiraling.
“What’s the meaning of ‘O’ in o’clock???,” asked Threads user and fashion designer @Jenny_Nuel1 in August.
While wild guessers suggested that the letter stood for “zero,” “oida” (“old person” in Viennese), “Omega” and more.
But its true meaning isn’t all that jazzy.
The “o” simply stands for “of the,” according to the Britannica Dictionary, which says, “an apostrophe is used in o’clock because the word is a contraction of the phrase ‘of the clock.’”