Question: Can you tell me the origin of the phrase "graveyard shift"?
Answer: As is so often the case with familiar expressions, the origin of "graveyard shift" is difficult to pin down to one primary source. The very first use of the term in print that we have seen is in a quotation from 1895 that contains not "graveyard shift" precisely, but "graveyard watch." As with many of our subsequent examples of "graveyard watch," this use is in a nautical context, referring to the shipboard watch beginning at midnight (and usually lasting four hours). A related nautical term, "gravy-eyed watch," may have preceded "graveyard watch" or may be an alteration of it. We do know that "gravy-eyed" meant "bleary-eyed" as far back as 1785.
In any case, we find "graveyard shift" already on solid ground in 1908; that year the Saturday Evening Post used the term, and explained it as "the interval between 12 midnight and eight in the morning." In the period from the 1920s to the 1940s, "graveyard shift" or "graveyard watch" appeared in glossaries of sea terms, railroad speech, ranch slang and mining terms, sometimes with an explanation of its origin.
Thus, we learn that the "graveyard" designation refers to the fact that more disasters happen in the wee hours of the morning, or to the belief that the loss of sleep incurred sends a person prematurely to the grave, or simply to the quietness of that time of day. We don't know the statistics behind the first two claims, but one source does cite "dying shift" as a synonym!
Workers on the graveyard shift might prefer a more positive point of view, like that of one Wall Street night watchman who said, "You shouldn't give it a bad name. A big city like this needs people working around the clock. Call it the third shift."
Question: I recently heard the phrase "Dutch uncle," and wasn't sure what it meant. What is the meaning of the term, and where did it come from?
Answer: "Dutch uncle" was first recorded in English in 1837. We define it in "Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition" as "one who admonishes sternly and bluntly." In all the early uses of the term, it appears as a simile in phrases like "to talk to (someone) like a Dutch uncle." The term is still most often seen in constructions of that kind.
As with other compounds that include the word "Dutch" (such as "Dutch treat" or "Dutch bargain"), it is probable that the "Dutch uncle" reflects old cultural stereotypes about the Dutch - stereo-types that stem from the earlier rivalry between England and Holland. There is some doubt, however, as to whether the stereotype in this case is Dutch or German, since "Dutch" also was and is used for groups of German extraction (like the Pennsylvania Dutch), and certain compounds using the word "Dutch" really refer to stereotypically German traits.
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Question: I have heard the expression "three sheets to the wind" many times referring to a person who has imbibed too much. Where did this expression originate?
Answer: "Three sheets in the wind," or "three sheets to the wind," goes back at least as far as 1821, when it was used by British writer Pierce Egan in "Life in London": "Old Wax and Bristles is about three sheets in the wind." The "sheets" in this expression are not bedclothes, as you probably guessed, but neither are they sails. A sheet is a line or chain that is attached to the lower corner of a ship's sail and used to extend or shorten the sail. If you were on a three-sailed vessel and all three sheets were loose - in the wind - the boat would wallow about uncontrollably much like a staggering drunk. Old-time sailors would say that someone only slightly tipsy was "one sheet in the wind," while a rip-roaring drunk was "three sheets in the wind."
Question: Why do we call those from whom we are descended our "ancestors"? Wouldn't "precestors" make more sense?
Answer: Sound changes that took place when French grew out of Latin have obscured the etymology of "ancestor" for present-day English speakers. From Old French, Middle English borrowed "ancestre," which in turn is derived from the Late Latin "antecessor," having much the same meaning as its English descendant. In earlier Latin "antecessor" meant literally "one who goes before or in front," from "ante-," "before," (familiar to us in modern English words like "antechamber" and "antebellum") plus "cedere," "to go." Thus our ancestors are those who went before us.
