Sunday, October 24, 2010

Wondering about the Time of Day

OK, here I go again. Wondering about things that most people take for granted. Something as simple as the time of day should be pretty straight forward, right? Wrong, in many cases. Let us examine the words “morning”, “afternoon”, “evening”, and “night”.

Let me start with “morning”. It seems that even the experts can’t quite describe it; like the dictionary and Wikipedia. I guess most people would say it is that time after sunrise until noon. But, what about when you get up before the sun comes up. Don’t you say that you got up extra early this morning? I haven’t heard someone say that I got up last night when he just got up an hour before the sun came up. Of course officially, morning starts just after midnight. But isn’t that still “night”?

OK, maybe “afternoon” will be easier to explain. Let’s see, the word “after” means later or following or behind in place of order. And “noon” is 12:00 hours, so afternoon means the time after 12:00 pm. Yep, that was easier, but where does afternoon stop. One definition that I read was that afternoon was the time between noon and evening. Isn’t evening still after the noon hour in the same day? So, afternoon should last until midnight, right?

So then, when does evening start. Let’s say you ate your supper at 17:00 (5:00 pm). Would you be eating your supper in the late afternoon or the early evening? I usually think of evening as being after dark. It isn’t dark at 17:00 where I live.

Lightness and darkness are quite different depending on the latitude where you may be. So sunlight, or lack of, should not be a factor. I am starting to get mixed up and I thought this would be an easy subject. . .

Now I don’t know when evening starts, or stops for that matter. Guess it stops at midnight. But then where does “night” fit in? And what happens when you get your days and nights mixed up? Well, I think that I just did!!

Before my head spins off my neck and crashes to the floor, I think I better stop trying to figure this stuff out. Now I am wondering why I wonder about so many things that I just can’t explain. . .

7 comments:

  1. And now I am Waaaay confused!!! All I want to know is,,Is It lunch time yet? :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. For me: morning is 5am-ish to noon, afternoon is noon to 6pm or dark, whichever comes first, evening is 6pm or dark until 8ish, and night is 8ish to 5am-ish. Works for me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ben, I was born confused. And any time is lunch time, if'n you are hungry.

    Shadow, I do believe that there is enough leeway as to fit any time of day. So, what ever works for you is just fine.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You guys just like to keep me confused, I think! Of course, that doesn't take much these days!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sorry Jim, don't mean to keep you confused, but why shouldn't you be when all the rest of us are? :-) Thanks for checking in.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I see it as two separate scales. You have Day/Night, clearly separated by the presence of visible sunlight.seperation

    The you have the more detailed separations. Midnight (when the sun is lowest, give or take an hour), Morning (midnight until noon), Noon (when the sun is highest, give or take an hour), Afternoon (noon until "supper"), and Evening ("supper" until midnight). While its not as relevant in todays society as it used to be (sadly), I find it funny that there is only one morning separation, but two between noon and midnight, and that separation is the major family/social meal.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I split it all up equally.

    Morning is 6am to midday
    Afternoon is midday to 6pm
    Evening is 6pm till midnight

    And midnight till 6am is PARTY TIME!

    ReplyDelete