How to properly typeset a.m. and p.m.

[innovati]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

Hey all,

I've recently run into a slight dilemma. I did a document and formatted the times in this method: hh:mm xx,(4:50 pm)

My client wants the times to all be in this format: hh:mm X.X. (4:50 P.M.)

Personally, I cringe at the thought of visually disturbing the flow of the text like that, but it made me wonder.

What is the proper way, I know all forms xx, x.x., XX, and X.X. are accepted, but what is the most widely accepted, what do you as designers do, and are there prominent examples of use?

Thanks in advance for your insight on this matter, I never considered that I didn't know this before.

[Knerkin]

Small caps.

Curt Akin

[innovati]

oh, of course, the one thing I omit from my post.

so small caps, but with or without periods?

[eliason]

Without.

[Knerkin]

I agree--without.

You will meet resistance to both lc and no periods. I have a customer who runs for The Chicago Manual of Style every time I make a style decision like this. CMoS goes with a.m. and p.m. So, she comes running to me waving the examples in 9.42. She never looked carefully enough to see the "often appear in small capitals..., in which case periods are unnecessary."

You will be much happier if your face includes true sc rather than a set-small large cap.

Curt Akin

[innovati]

I had been hoping to use Myriad Pro regular SemiCondensed. No such luck with true small caps, but I could maybe beef it up to Myriad Pro semibold SemiCondensed and go for a smaller point size?

What's average for Small Caps, 20% smaller than the cap-height of Full Caps?

I just can't do full caps with periods. I won't do it!

[Stephen Coles]

It's better to use lowercase than fake small caps. There are many different acceptable styles for am/pm. Most important is to remain consistent throughout your project/identity.

[pattyfab]

Full caps with periods just doesn't work with OSF. It's not so bad with lining figs.

[evertype]

In Ireland the 24-hour clock tends to be preferred... but it's considered bad form to omit the full stops from "a.m." Why? Because while "a.m." and "p.m." are used in English, both are also used in Irish, and "am" is a noun meaning 'time' in Irish. So for consistency (particularly in light of bilingual invitations and so on) "a.m." is recommended here.

In Irish "roimh nóin" and "iarnóin" are also used for "before noon" and "afternoon"; the abbreviations are "r.n." and "in." though "i.n." is also seen.

Michael Everson
evertype.com

[will powers]

I'm sticking to small caps with periods. No ambiguities, and it just looks better to my eye.

powers

[eliason]

Yours is a more experienced eye than mine, Will, but I find that mildly surprising. Seems like redundant formatting. Wouldn't that be akin to underlining and italicizing titles, or spacing out and indenting paragraphs? Would you set "The NASA launch is set for 10:30A.M." (with NASA and A.M. all in small caps)?

[cerulean]

Certainly; acronyms and abbreviations are different. When speaking, you pronounce NASA, but you spell out A.M.

[timd]

‘Periods are equally unnecessary in acronyms and other abbreviations commonly written with small or large capitals. Thus: 3:00 AM and 450 BC [small caps]; Washington, DC, and Mexico, DF;’

The Elements of Typographic Style Robert Bringhurst

The Oxford Guide to Style would have it as 4.50 p.m.

Personally I would prefer the small caps version with no stops.

Tim

[eliason]

Point taken; how about "The FBI briefing is set for 10:30A.M."?

[dezcom]

Craig,
That 10:30A.M. looks bad to me. It just dominates too much.

ChrisL

[dezcom]

Here are a few tries. Look at the last line which requires a period as an ending of a sentence. The double period looks awkward. What is done in that case?

ChrisL

[nina]

To make matters even more complicated: What's up with the space between the time and the 'a.m.'/'p.m.' markers (however those may be formatted)? Some of you put in a space, some of you don't. To me personally, it looks rather horrid without the space, but I wouldn't know.

[paul d hunt]

Dez, all those and you forgot to put FBI in small caps. :P

[Thomas Phinney]

I hate seeing the space omitted. It seems to be quite common these days, but it looks wrong to me.

T

[cslem1]

‘Periods are equally unnecessary in acronyms and other abbreviations commonly written with small or large capitals. Thus: 3:00 AM and 450 BC [small caps]; Washington, DC, and Mexico, DF;’

The Elements of Typographic Style Robert Bringhurst

I love that book. i do agree though, small caps keep the flow, where as periods sometime stops it (I'm personally not a fan of the periods in the AM and PM).

courtney

[will powers]

I'm not sure I can justify this any better to my friend the art history prof than by saying "After many years this is what I prefer."

Maybe on the grounds of disambiguation: the periods prevent "A.M." from becoming "AM," which is a word. I know, I know: in books for readers with any degree of smart much beyond a brick, this will not be an issue; they'll dig that it is time we are talking about here, not a state of existence.

Maybe for some the periods "stop the flow." Not for me.

Dez's dubble-period example is indeed horrid. But he needn't worry. In this case the period serves equally as part of the abbreviation and as the sentence terminal. You could look that up in Chicago at 9.42 ("The first train leaves at 5:22 a.m. and the last at 11:00 p.m.").

Which leads me to say, once again: Following Chicago or Bringhurst should always take second place to our own well-considered ideas of what helps a page. As long as they are indeed "well-considered."

Horrid also is the lack of a space following the hour number.

powers

[charles_e]

Now all you guys have to do is find a publisher (or client) where the publisher's house style doesn't trump the latest typographic fashion. When you find them, please share.

[will powers]

oh, not to worry on that count, Charles. By the time that client is found the typographic fashions will have been changed again. Sic semper tyrannis.

powers

[istariskoda]

10:30 ante meridiem

Chuck

[innovati]

wow! tremendous insight everybody, thanks a ton! I'd love to keep hearing different persepctives on it.

Some more specific information about the actual situation I'm dealing with right now. I am making a flyer equivalent to a conference schedule for a series of training sessions happening at a college here in my town. Space is at a premium and the chart has to fit within the width of a standard letter-sized sheet.

I haven't be fortunate to have the shortest workshop names, and the names on the chart are literally usually half of the actual full name of each session already!

I put the format as '5:00 pm' and my supervisor requested '5:00 P.M.' "because that's the proper way to do it, and also to change the times throughout the body copy to that format as well to be consistent."

I can understand including the 'pm' so people don't show up at 5 am to the college, but I think making the times that big and spaced out will ultimately break the flow of the chart, and if I do it my way in the chart, I must remain constant throughout the whole document.

I am using Myriad Pro SemiCondensed, which unfortunately, doesn't have Small Caps that I could find anywhere. Here's a picture of what I've got so far: