Comments on: Graveyard / Dog / Lobster Shift

By: Breck

Breck — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 01:00:56 +0000

Graveyard shift also comes from the propensity ill people have of dying in the earliest hours of the morning.

By: Ernest Adams

Ernest Adams — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 10:32:46 +0000

I don’t agree about dog watches being unpopular with the sailors because they made the sailors miss their dinner. Thanks (again) to Patrick O’Brian, I know that dinner for the foremast hands was served at noon. The two dog watches are from 4 PM to 6 PM and from 6 PM to 8 PM.

By: The Old Lobster Trick « Shannon McDermott

The Old Lobster Trick « Shannon McDermott — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:04:34 +0000

[...] has had other, more mysterious names – dog watch, lobster trick, lobster shift. According to The Word Detective, “dog watch” dates back to the eighteenth-century, when it was used by sailors for the [...]

By: George Reuther

George Reuther — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:44:47 +0000

Contrarily, during the mid 80′s while working in the Hotel industry in Boston. Worked many shifts of 12-noon to 8pm which at the time was referred to as “The Dog Shift”. Great for someone in their early 20′s; had the good fortune of staying out late and waking up late without missing work.

By: Terry Fitz

Terry Fitz — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:17:05 +0000

I don’t know if the late author Patrick O’Brian could be considered an authority on language, but he should probably be considered an authority on British naval life circa 1800. In just about all of his books, he refers to the Marines aboard Naval vessels as “lobsters” – apparently in reference to their red coats. Is it possible that the “lobster trick” is related to that? Also – and this is just an O’Brian joke pure and simple – one of his characters is asked why the “dog-watch” is thus named. The character explains, “Because it is cur-tailed.”

By: Nancy

Nancy — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:31:51 +0000

Not according to the great word detective himself who said some time ago regarding wake:

“The primary modern senses of “wake” all center on that “become or stay alert” meaning. The “wake,” or vigil over a body held between death and burial in many religions, harks back to the antiquated “watch or guard” sense. No one, contrary to what you might read on the internet, ever expected the object of such a “wake” to actually “wake up”.”

And even longer since he posted “dead ringer”:

“The “ringer” in “dead ringer” comes from the phrase “ring the changes,” which literally means to ring all the bells in a bell-tower in varying sequences, and metaphorically means to repeat something in a variety of ways. As slang, “ring the changes” means to substitute a bad or false thing for a good thing, and it’s that “phony” meaning that gave us “dead ringer.”

First found in about 1890, “ringer” was originally horse-racing slang for a horse with a proven track record that was surreptitiously substituted for a less qualified, untested horse. “Ringer” is now used as slang for anything that has been tampered with or unfairly altered. The “dead” in “dead ringer” is simply an intensifier, meaning “absolutely,” and since a “ringer” must resemble the thing it replaces, “dead ringer” has come to mean something indistinguishable from another thing or person.”

By: Yve

Yve — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:19:45 +0000

Hi The term graveyard shift dates from the night after a corpse was buried. A bell was attached to the corpse and someone sat up all night, in case the bell rang, to dig up the poor unfortunate. We also get the term ‘dead ringer’ from the same source. The term Wake, when a party was held around the body laid out in the coffin, was to give the ‘corpse’ time to awake before burial.