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What the Heck is an “O’Clock”?

There are a lot of things that make me crazy – taxes, government people, and taxes. I guess a lot of it is government stuff…but not all. I was gettin’ my hair cut on Saturday and Joe the barber said to me,

“You’re lucky you showed up when you did, Cletus. I’m closin’ early today. 3 o’clock.”

That got me thinkin’. Not about Joe closin’ early. I figured that he was thirsty and was goin’ to the Legion. I wondered about the word “o’clock”. Where did it come from? What the heck does it mean? Lucky for me that Old Aubry was sittin’ there sharin’ our air. Aubry is older than dirt and knows a lot of stuff.

He was almost asleep when I yelled at him. He’s also hard of hearin’.

“Hey Aubry, what the heck is an ‘o’clock’?”

“Huh?!?”

“I said, what the heck is an o’clock?”

Aubry’s eyes lit up. Someone was askin’ him a question!

He sat up and looked at me with his good eye. “Well, let me see. If you was around maybe 700 years ago, there wasn’t many clocks bein’ used, but people still needed to know the time. A lot of folks was still usin’ sundials, so people would say, ‘It’s seven of the clock.’ Understand?”

I shook my head and said not really, so Aubry tried explainin’ it again.

“It’s easy, Cletus. They used to say ‘of the clock’, so you knew that the time they was givin’ you was comin’ from a clock and not a sundial.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really! English bein’ a lazy man’s language, ‘of the clock’ got shortened down to ‘o’clock’. Got it now?”

“I guess so…”

“Cletus, any word with an “o’” just means ‘of the’. Here, I’ll give you a couple of examples. “O’Shaunessy” meanin’ ‘of the Shaunessy family’. "Jack o’ lantern" meanin’ ‘Jack of the lantern’ - which originally meant ‘man of the lantern.’ Okay?”

I smiled and said, “O’ Kay – meanin’ of the Kays.”

Old Aubry looked at me strangely for a second, and then broke out laughin’.

How do you do it Steve?

However you do it, don't stop.

I get a lot of help from the news, the Internets, and many posts here on 24 hr campfire.

You are very 'clockwise' friend.