Gen Z was surprised to learn the true meaning of ‘am’ and ‘pm’

They are finally putting social media to good use – and that’s it with fear.

Spending the day on apps like X has recently become somewhat of an educational activity as fans of the platform are just learning the importance of “am” and “pm”.

“I may be called stupid after this, but WTF does ‘AM’ and ‘PM’ mean?” asked user X @IAMTOINEJ in a tweet that has garnered over 21 million views.

It’s a question he posed on the platform — formerly known as Twitter — amid the tumultuous 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 of the people on the Internet who responded also had no idea what the shorthand meant.

“After midnight and after midnight,” mused one confused commenter.

“Ahh (it’s) morning” & “Period (it’s) midnight,” teased another.

“I never thought to ask that question in my life,” admitted an equally confused spectator.

Well, here’s the answer in plain English – abbreviations are rooted in Latin.

Both forenoon and afternoon stand for the Latin phrases “ante meridiem,” meaning before noon, and “post meridiem,” meaning after noon.

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 widespread confusion about which abbreviation should be used for noon and midnight,” experts say, “no moment can be logically identified as before noon (am) or after noon (pm).”

But mornings and afternoons aren’t the only time-related elizabeths that digital drugs have left behind.

The “o” in “o’clock” has also felt the spiral of cyberspace.

“What’s the meaning of the ‘O’ in the clock?” asked Threads user and fashion designer @Jenny_Nuel1 in August.

While wild guessers suggested the letter stood for “zero,” “oida” (“old person” in Viennese), “Omega” and more.

But its true meaning is not so much jazz.

The “o” simply stands for “to,” according to the Britannica Dictionary, which says, “an apostrophe is used in o’clock because the word is a contraction of the phrase ‘of o’clock.’