OK...So What Does The "O" In O'clock Stand For? Story

It was an ordinary day.  Weather is beautiful in dear old Lancaster, Pennsylvania and I am sitting in my second bedroom/office preparing to type yet another story for my beloved blog..."Extraordinary stories from an ordinary guy!"  First of all...Thank You so much for reading my stories on a daily basis.  I realize that some may not be as interesting as others, but I don't always have an exciting day to share with everyone.  Some stories might have happened in the past while others might be from yesterday or a few days ago...while yet others may be telling of what I anticipate to happen in the near or distant future.  Well, my exciting story today has to do with what the "o" in o'clock stands for.  Though some folks think that the "o" stands for "on the," it actually comes from the phrase "of the clock."  When we use the word o'clock, we're saying that it's a particular hour "according to the clock."  For example, "it's almost 4 o'clock" means the same thing as "it is almost 4 according to the clock."  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the phrase "of the clock" can trace its origin back to 1384.  This coincides with the growing popularity of mechanical clocks in Europe, the first of which were thought to have been built between 1270 and 1300 in northern Italy and southern Germany.  Before this, time was often measured by sundials or shadow clocks.  As clocks became more prevalent, "of the clock" became a standard way to indicate time.  These days no one says, "I'll meet you at 6 of the clock."  We say, "See ya at 6 o'clock."  The Oxford English Dictionary cites 1419 as the first known use of the contraction o'clock, just a few decades after the debut of the phrase "of the clock."  So...just how did the "of the clock" morph into "o'clock"?  As they do with many cumbersome words and phrases, people naturally shortened "of the clock" to "o'clock" for quicker and easier communication.  "Because it's a set phrase for telling time, it's not surprising that it got shortened over time because we're staying it fast," says Anne Curzan, PhD, a professor of English, linguistics and education at the University of Michigan.  As Michael Adams, PhD., a professor of English and linguistics at Indiana University, explains, the abbreviation makes sense when you understand how the English language evolves.  "It's unusual for English speakers to retain a lot of words in unstressed positions in a phrase," he says.  "In '1 of the clock,' you've got two unstressed words there: the of and the the.  And it is an invitation to a type of abbreviation.  So it's not "1 of the clock", but "1 o'clock."  You get that nice alternating rhythm there, which is so typical of the cadence of the English language."  As literacy increased and written language became more standardized, the shortened form of o'clock took hold.  "Part of what you have here is that, because these are early enough, the spelling comes to reflect the pronunciation," adds Curzan.  So...what does the clock in o'clock come from?  Now that you know what the "o" in "o'clock" stands for, you may wonder where the clock comes from.  Here's a fascinating fact for you: It has roots in Christianity.  See, the earliest mechanical clocks were in church towers and indicated the time by striking a bell, calling worshippers to Mass or prayer.  The Latin word for bell is clocca.  Sound familiar?  So people referred to time in terms of chimes.  "If you are a monk or a nun, you think of time in terms of bells because the bells will toll, and if it's nine bells, then you know where you're supposed to be praying or singing hymns."  Eventually, smaller clocks became popular, and more homes could afford them.  And many of those timepieces. (grandfather clocks or spring-run clocks) employed a bell that would chime on the quarter hour, half hour or hour.  "So the bell doesn't go away," says Adams.  "The word for bell gets adopted for the thing that tells the time.  And then suddenly we're using the word clock in English."  The standard way to state a precise time is by putting a number in front of o'clock.  But, according to Curzan, by the mid-1800s, you could put a word in front of o'clock as an informal indication of the time of an event.  "So this is when you'll start to see 'dinner o'clock,'" she says.  Though Curzan says the phrase wine o'clock is pretty new, the Oxford English Dictionary cites this example from a 1910 San Francisco Chronicle article:  "I've been here ever since beer o'clock." What are other uses for o'clock?  Today we ask each other, "What time is it?"  In the past, according to Curzan, you could have asked, "What o'clock is it?  We probably don't have to tell you that you won't find that use in the dictionary anymore, since it is now obsolete.  But there are other uses of o'clock that have stuck around.  "Something that we still do today, which we have recorded back to the 1700s, is using 'x o'clock' in terms of directions," says Curzan.  Say you want to alert your friend that her boss is in the restaurant.  You could say, "He's with a woman in the green grass," or you could say, "He's at 9 o'clock.  We also drive with our hands on the steering wheel in the 10 and 2 o'clock positions, "which makes no sense unless you know how we're using those to orient,"  So....before I totally mess you. up...I will quit right now...which happens to be Tuesday, 9:51 A.M.  Now wasn't that so much easier?  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.