Date and time notation in Italy records the date using the day–month–year format ( or ). The time is written using the

24-hour clock The modern 24-hour clock is the convention of timekeeping in which the day runs from midnight to midnight and is divided into 24 hours. This is indicated by the hours (and minutes) passed since midnight, from to , with as an option to indicate ...

(); in spoken language and informal contexts, the

12-hour clock The 12-hour clock is a time convention in which the 24 hours of the day are divided into two periods: a.m. (from Latin , translating to "before midday") and p.m. (from Latin , translating to "after midday"). Each period consists of 12&nb ...

is more commonly adopted, but without using "a.m." or "p.m." suffixes (:).

Date

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, the all-numeric form for dates is in the day–month–year format, using a

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

as the separator; sometimes a dot or a hyphen is used instead of the stroke. Years can be written with two or four digits; day and month are traditionally written without zero padding (1/9/1985) although forms and computing made it common (01/09/1980). Long dates are expressed optionally with the day of the week. Months and weekdays are written with a lowercase letter since they are not considered proper nouns. * or * ''2/6/1992'' or ''2/6/92 – 02/06/1992'' In written and spoken language, a date or year is preceded by the

definite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" ...

(with or without the preposition "in"): * or * or * o ; o The first day of the month is usually written or ; is possible but less desirable. This can either be pronounced ' ("the first of December") or ' ("the one of December"), even if the latter may be considered unsatisfactory or wrong. The other days of the month always follow the cardinal form. Two-digit years may be used in the expanded form, elided with an apostrophe: "", although this notation is considered informal and less preferable. More rarely, three-digit years may also be found: "". In letter writing, the date is preceded by the place in which the letter has been written, usually with the definite article: * * The archaic plural article ''li'' (a variant of the current plural articles ''i'' or ''gli'') still endures in bureaucratic correspondence but should be avoided. The article originally referred to "days" (), which became commonly implied in use (). It is also not uncommon to read ''lì'' ("there") in official documents, an incorrect form originated by the erroneous interpretation of the article as an adverb of place. An unfamiliar format is year–month–day, explicitly used in computing contexts to avoid ambiguity from DMY format (1992-12-31). The first day of the week in Italy is Monday, but for the

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

the first day is Sunday.

Time

Official time is always given in 24-hour format. The 24-hour notation is used in writing with a

dot A dot is usually a small, round spot. Dot, DoT or DOT may also refer to: Orthography * Full stop or "period", a sentence terminator * Dot (diacritic), a mark above or below a character (e.g. ȧ, ạ, İ, Ċ, ċ, etc.), usually to indicate sou ...

or a colon as a separator. Example: or . It is also common to use the comma as a separator (), even if this is generally considered incorrect. The minutes are written with two digits; the hour numbers can be written with or without zero padding (02:05 or 2:05). In oral communication, 12-hours are prominently used since 24-hours are considered very formal. In 12-hours, hour figures are always preceded by the definite article and a.m. or p.m. are never used. ' is 1 p.m. (1 in the afternoon), ' is 2 p.m., ' is 3 p.m. etc. Hours after sunset or dusk (but in some cases even just after noon) are given as ' ("7 in the evening"), ' (8 in the evening) and so on until 11 p.m. which is '. Midnight is simply '. Following hours are ' (1 a.m., "1 in the night"), ' (2 a.m.) or sometimes ' (1 in the morning), '. After dawn, hours are ' (8 a.m.), ' (9 a.m.) until 11 a.m. Midday (noon) is '. 12-hours may be used with approximate time, such as ' (a quarter past three) or with precise time (', 03:18 or 15:18). Whether one is referring to a.m. or p.m. is generally implicit in the context of the conversation; otherwise, more information must be provided to avoid confusion: ' (3:18 p.m.). In some parts of the country (e.g., Tuscany and Sardinia) only ''mattina'' e ''sera'' are used in everyday speech: thus, ' is 2 p.m. or 14:00 and ' is 2 a.m. or 02:00. Furthermore, in Tuscany, until recent times, ''l'una'' was virtually unknown: Tuscans used to say ''il tocco'' ("the toll", referring to the church bell) instead for both 1 p.m. or 13:00 and 1 a.m. or 01:00.

Date

Time

References

See also