Someone just came to me and asked me a question - The were watching ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ on TV (stick with me here) when someone mentioned the Lone Ranger. Mentioned it on the show, that is. Can someone confirm that the Lone Ranger was, indeed, a radio show before WWII and the approximate date it began? Or did the historical researchers who edited the scripts for the war time documentary ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ make a blunder?
It got me to thinking about another anachronism - I was watching another TV show (period drama) set before World War One and someone mentioned something happening at the eleventh hour, meaning at the last possible moment. This struck me as odd as I had always thought that the expression came from the armistice which came into effect at the eleventh hour, 11th November 1918 . Did the expression come from the armistice time, was the armistice time chosen due to the expression or was it just coincidental?
I’ve always understood the expression “at the eleventh hour”, meaning at the last moment, to have come from the Gospel story of the labourers in the vinyeyard. The labourers hired at the eleventh hour (i.e. at about 5.00pm, just before the end of the day) were paid the same amount as those hired earlier in the morning, thus giving rise to complaints from the ones who had done a full day’s work.
I just read Band of Brothers (about the E company of the 101st Airborne during WWII, for those who don’t know), and Capt. Soebal yells “High Ho Silver” a lot. I can’t imagine that he coined it.
Ooop, quick Yahoo search gave me this
The Lone Ranger debuted on Detroit radio station WXYZ in 1933
The “eleventh hour” to mean “at the last minute” first appears in English in the early 19th century. If it appears in an early English translation of the Bible, I’d love to know.
In a similar vein (if you will), in George R. R. Martin’s vampire novel Fevre Dream, one of the vampires mentions that he’s nothing like Dracula. Which might not be an unusual reference today, but the novel was set in the 1850’s. Before the publication of Stoker’s novel in 1897, Vlad Dracula was an obscure medieval warlord.
As Cunctator has pointed out already, the phrase occurs in the parable of the labourers (Matt 20:1-16), with the exact words used by the KJV being ‘about the eleventh hour’.
Whether this is the actual source of the phrase is another matter, as the parable doesn’t quite use it in the same sense and, in any case, the concept is a relatively obvious one.
While the cites from the OED are made in allusion to the Biblical parable, the actual parable, as **[AP ** says, isn’t quite using it to mean at the last minute. At least that’s my view. But I can see how it could be interpreted that way.
OED: 1829 SOUTHEY All for Love I. xxiv, Though at the eleventh hour Thou hast come to serve our Prince of Power. 1870 ROSSETTI Let. 17 Mar. (1965) II. 820 But I am getting into that mistrustful state which 11th hour work is sure to engender.
I was going to point out, as samclem did, that in the bible it’s meant literally. It’s the last working hour of the day, and that’s when the last guys are hired. Tell me if I misinterpret that. Therefore, to use the term eleventh hour in the sense that you mean a last minute event wasn’t first used in the bible, it was just the terminology for the last working hour. Much like saying “3 strikes and you’re out” comes from baseball, but the first time it was ever used to say “that was your last chance, buddy” probably wasn’t in baseball, it was probably some wife talking to her husband the third time he came home with lipstick on his collar. So I think that whatever the use that samclem eluded to before may well be the first time it is used to mean an “up to the last minute event.”
I’ve also heard the phrase “at the eleventh hour” used by people to mean “late in the process”, which is very much akin to the meaning in the biblical parable. As others have pointed out, it’s not a huge step from the implication of “late in the process” to “at the last moment”.
