The Eleventh Hour

No, I'm not talking about the new show on CBS (I'm kind of hot and cold on that one, anyway--I mean, I love Rufus Sewell, but is that enough to make me a fan?). I'm talking about the origin of Veterans Day, which dates back to the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month some eighty years ago. The moment in which the Allies and Germany entered into an armistice, a cease-fire that would bring to an end years of fighting.

You can learn a lot about the actual history of Veterans Day (and it's had a pretty rocky history--especially in the early 70s) on this US Army website, but the bottom line is that eighty years ago today marked the end of World War I, aka The Great War.


Before I became a writer, I never thought much about the origin of words and phrases. Now I find myself fascinated by the history of some of favorite idioms, wondering where a certain word originated and how it became a part of our language. Like the term "the eleventh hour."


Today, the eleventh hour means at the last possible moment (kind of on par with "just under the wire"). But in the years following WWI, I can only imagine the phrase had a far more serious connotation. Society at the time believed they had just been saved (at literally the eleventh hour) from the war to end all wars. No war could be greater or more costly in terms of both money and lives. (Little did they know, right?) They could hardly have used the phrase in the same lighthearted manner in which we do today.

I'm fascinated by how this term came into popular use and has changed over the decades. I'm kind of fascinated by all words--where did they come from? who made them up? how did they become a part of our everyday vocabulary? I want that job. The job of thinking up words. How cool would that be? (Okay, as I writer I technically occasionally get to make up words, so maybe I already have that job. Yay me!)

So, how about it? Am I the only word nerd out there? Do you have some favorite phrases that you've always wondered where they came from? Like maybe--wait for it ... something from popular TV?

All words and phrases had to come from somewhere. Where is your favorite from?

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New words!

Merriam-Webster's has added over 100 words this year to the dictionary, including the word that combines "gigantic" and "enormous" -- a total YA word:



Younger, hipper, more urban terms are turning up in the new edition such as "crunk" and "speed dating" and the craze of "sudoku." Not everyone thinks this is a good idea, but here's what the president of Merriam-Webster had to say:

"There will be linguistic conservatives who will turn their nose up at a word like `ginormous,'" said John Morse, Merriam-Webster's president. "But it's become a part of our language. It's used by professional writers in mainstream publications. It clearly has staying power."

What words would you like to see in the mainstream dictionary next time? What word or phrase would you make up of your own that you'd like to see go down in history as a great catch phrase?

And for the record...Merriam-Webster traces ginormous back to 1948, when it appeared in a British dictionary of military slang.

Let's hear what you think!