One last nit to pick (2 actually)

I promise this is my last grammar nit-pick post for a while, but I can't resist this one.

Yesterday I went to the Siena-Northeastern basketball game. The ticket said it started at "12:00 p.m.'' This confused me, because there is no such time as 12 p.m. By definition, 12:00 is neither a.m. nor p.m.

OK, so it didn't really confuse me. I knew that by 12:00 p.m. they meant noon. (Why they were playing at noon on a Tuesday is another story - suffice it to say it was a chance to get on national TV as part of a 24-hour ESPN marathon to mark the beginning of the college-basketball season.)

I also know that by 12:00 a.m. people usually mean midnight. And I have no idea why people say "12 noon,'' since "11 noon'' or "1 noon'' make no sense.

Also have to mention the comma splice on the back of the ticket. "No refund or exchanges, the ticket is nontransferable,'' it declares, avoiding at all costs the simple period that would properly have separated two distinct thoughts into two sentences.

OK, you can now stop sending me examples of errors I have made in pointing out other people's mistakes, and I'll go back to silently stewing about such issues.