it has nothing to do with a graveyard? why do they call it that?
2007-12-15 01:44:23 · 5 answers · asked by Sunshyne 4 in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
According to Harold Wentworth and Stuart Berg Flexner's Dictionary of American Slang, the name "graveyard shift" refers to "the ghostlike hour of employment" -- and nothing more.
That said I still like this story that floats around the Internet:
"England is old and small, and they started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a house and re-use the grave. In reopening these coffins, one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on their wrist and lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.
"Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Hence on the 'graveyard shift' they would know that someone was 'saved by the bell' or he was a 'dead ringer.'"
2007-12-15 02:09:31 · answer #1 · answered by Beach Saint 7 · 5⤊ 0⤋
The graveyard shift means a shift of work running through the early hours of the morning, especially one from midnight until 8 am. There is no certainty as to the origin of this phrase; according to Michael Quinion it is little more than "an evocative term for the night shift ... when ... your skin is clammy, there's sand behind your eyeballs, and the world is creepily silent, like the graveyard."
2007-12-15 01:50:28 · answer #2 · answered by Queen of the Tofu People 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I examine: "graveyard shift is an evocative term for the night shift between approximately midnight and eight interior the morning, while - no rely how in lots of situations you have labored it - your epidermis is clammy, there is sand at the back of your eyeballs, and the international is creepily silent, like the graveyard. The word dates purely from the early years of the 20 th century."
2016-11-27 02:10:44 · answer #3 · answered by mento 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The person who relieves me for the graveyard shift says its when the place is quiet and lonely, no ones around like a graveyard.
2007-12-15 02:53:30 · answer #4 · answered by fenix360 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I've nothing to add to those excellent answers, except to say that I think the 4-8 p.m. shift is the Swing Shift! Good question.
2007-12-15 05:06:29 · answer #5 · answered by derfini 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋