A history of lateness
Lateness. Where did it all begin? What good has it ever done anyone? In our campaign to root out tardiness forever, we've uncovered some key trivia from its chequered history:
- The word 'late' itself means 'after the expected time' or 'deceased', stemming from the Old English 'læt' meaning 'slow' and the Old High German 'laz' meaning 'lazy'. (Thanks to Dr Eva for that little nugget.)
- Living in 'late' geological periods was not good news for dinosaurs. Extinction events were waiting around the corner for any giant lizards who happened to be stomping around in the Late Devonian, Late Triassic or Late Cretaceous periods.
- Would you rather have lived in the High or Late Middle Ages? If you opted for the High Middle Ages, good call. You'd have avoided the Great Famine, the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War and massive economic decline.
- We think his plays are great, but we really have to take issue with Oscar Wilde's assertion that 'punctuality is the thief of time.' He should try telling that to the fabulous people from Royal Mail who make sure that every Special Delivery™ gets to its destination on the dot.
- In Stalinist Russia, workers who turned up 20 minutes late for work could expect to be fired on the spot for absenteeism. If only they'd had Dr Eva's 6 Step Stop Lateness Programme to fall back on instead.
- You're probably aware that Big Ben, one of our 'Timely Wonders Of The World' has remained accurate to within 1.5 seconds of GMT. Even in the face of numerous WWII bombs. However, in 1962 Big Ben's clock rang in the New Year a whole TEN MINUTES LATE just because of the wrong kind of snow. Someone in the office said 'there's snow excuse for lateness' but we think that's a thoroughly uncalled for gag about a timeliness-related national travesty.
