ack emma

Emprunt à l'anglais. British military phonetic alphabet slang for 'a.m.' (ante meridiem, i.e. morning). In the British Army's pre-NATO phonetic alphabet, 'A' was rendered as 'Ack' and 'M' as 'Emma', making 'Ack Emma' the spoken form of 'AM'. Used during and after World War One, the term is now largely obsolete but appears in military memoirs, period drama, and historical fiction as an authentic period marker. Its counterpart was 'pip emma' for p.m. (P = Pip, M = Emma).