When to say Good Morning | Afternoon | Evening | Night. When do the afternoon end and the evening st
Let's generalize first:
Evening = 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM Night = 9:00 PM - 11:59 PM Midnight = 12:00 AM
Noon (midday) = 12:00 Morning = 12:01 AM - 11:59 AM
According to OED, afternoon begins...guess when...after noon! So after 12 is afternoon. Evening, according to OED is sometime around sunset and it lasts until, they say, "bedtime." But, you know what? Basically they are just asking you if you want to work a day job, or a night job. People will give you all these silly definitions about the sky "coloring" or "darkening" or whatever, but I assume you are not working for a meteorologist and you want a common sense definition not some astronomical data.
"afternoon: The time from mid-day to evening."
"evening: The close of the day; usually, the time from about sunset till bedtime."
Good morning = 0:00 - 12:00 (Good-bye when leaving) (Good night if going to bed) Good afternoon = 12:01 - 17:00 (Good-bye when leaving) Good evening = 17:01 - 24:00 (Good night when leaving)
One American woman gave a very good explanation:
If you stay up ALL NIGHT LONG with friends and you find that it is 2 AM (or still dark) you can still say "Good Night".
It may be funny. The person may say "Good night" and look at their watch and laugh and say "or good morning!" It happens all the time! Here's another thing! Do not leave somebody and say "good evening". Good Evening is a GREETING. Even if it is 10 PM, when you greet someone you greet them with "good evening" and when you leave you say "good night". Good afternoon is tricky. Usually I don't hear good afternoon at all. If someone says it, it is usually 12pm - 4 pm. But I don't think it really matters. In America atleast, people just say "hey" or "what's up" :)
