NO.
The aspects of a day are assigned to the quarters of the day in the same way as the seasons of the year are broken up between the solstices and the equinoxes.
Ergo, as it is for a year:
- winter: winter solstice to spring equinox
- spring: spring equinox to summer solstice
- summer: summer solstice to fall equinox
- fall: fall equinox to winter solstice
So is it for a day:
- night: midnight to 6am
- morning: 6am to noon
- afternoon: noon to 6pm
- evening: 6pm to midnight
That’s a pretty controversial take. I don’t think anyone would call 5am “night” if they woke up at that time, but just really early morning. Same with 11pm being evening is more to do if weather you’re still awake or not. These are fuzzy definitions that are more about vibes than precisely what the clock says.
Same with the seasons really. There’s the definition you’ve given, and then there’s the one that’s more about the seasonal differences in the region. Winter where I live for example starts in November (probably around Remembrance day if I were to pin it down). It’s silly too wait until the solstice to consider it winter when there’s been over a month of snow on the ground and freezing temps.
The dictionary is…literally (hello self-evidence) full of words for which there has long existed an ‘Objective Definition’ but which usage has brought a consensus based ‘Subjective Definition’. Etymology is the study of a shifting process, and both you and them are correct:
Them in the expected usage a publication should use to apply it to a discreet entity, and you in the fact that the subjective shift in meaning gives us words that map anecdotally to our lives.
Truly…language is awe-some.
Where I live, in December, it’s already night by 4pm, whereas in July, 4pm isn’t even the peak of heat yet. But if someone said “good evening” to me at 4pm in either of them, I’d prob accept it either way, and I’m a meteorologist
Also: In the UK and the US, the typical meteorological standard is just to split seasons by month (DJF MAM JJA SON) for easy stats reasons, but other countries have entirely different standards based on climate. Different people have different definitions and it’s completely fine
No one says 10 pm or midnight is the evening.
See this is interesting because I use the words “evening” and “night” interchangeably. I’m from (broadly) northern Ohio.
If I’m greeting someone, “good morning” is from the time I wake up until noon, “good afternoon” from noon until the sun goes down or it’s 7pm or so, and “good evening” at any other time. It could be 3am, and if I’m meeting someone, I’d say “good evening.”
“Good night” is when you’re leaving. “Have a good night.” But night time is when it’s dark and evening is generally the same time.
This is the only correct take with the etymology partitioning of the words.
There’s merit to change afternoon to mid day, midnight to its opposite, then using morning and evening for their opposites.
More correct words would be
Night = 6p-6a Day = 6a - 6p
Night= 9pm - 3am Morning = 3am - 9am Day= 9am - 3pm Evening = 3pm - 9pm
Instead day also has connotations of the entirety of the day. So in reality we just need a new word for the sunny part of the day… Sunday and Moonday! Wait… Lightday and Darkday! Wait…
Midnight… Midmorn… Midday… Mideve… Wait…
AfterNoon. AfterEve. AfterNight. AfterMorn. Wait…
You know what. Fuck midnight. I’m now calling midnight Onno. now. Since it sounds like emo, oh no, and is the opposite of noon.
I’ll continue the lingual tradition of purposely mispronouncing Onno as AhNo instead of OhNo though because you can’t have English being phonetic now…
