[stylist] useful resource

Thu Jun 17 22:12:24 UTC 2010

I've subscribed to the "a phrase a week" newsletter for some time 
now.  don't think have shared it here.  below you'll see yesterday's.
jc
From: A Phrase A Week <apaw at phrasefinder.co.uk>

In the nick of time

Meaning

Just in time; at the precise moment.

Origin

The English language gives us the opportunity to be 'in' many things 
- <http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/in-the-doldrums.html>the 
doldrums, <http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/in-the-offing.html>the 
offing, <http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/in-the-pink.html>the 
pink; we can even be 
<http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/down-in-the-dumps.html>down in 
the dumps. With all of these expressions it is pretty easy to see 
what they refer to, but what or where is the 'nick of time'? It may 
not be immediately obvious what the nick of time is, but we do know 
what it means to be in it, i.e. arriving at the last propitious 
moment. Prior to the 16th century there was another expression used 
to convey that meaning - 'pudding time'. This relates to the fact 
that pudding was the dish served first at mediaeval mealtimes. To 
arrive at pudding time was to arrive at the start of the meal, just 
in time to eat. Pudding was then a savoury dish - a form of sausage 
or haggis (see also 
<http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/proof-of-the-pudding.html>the 
proof is in the pudding). Pudding time is first referred to in print 
in John Heywood's invaluable glossary A dialogue conteinyng the 
nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, 1546:

This geare comth euen in puddyng time ryghtly.

In the nick of
time
That seems a perfectly serviceable idiom, so why did the Tudors 
change it to 'the nick of time'? The motivation appears to be the 
desire to express a finer degree of timing than the vague 'around the 
beginning of the meal'. The nick that was being referred to was a 
notch or small cut and was synonymous with precision. Such notches 
were used on 'tally' sticks to measure or keep score.

Note: the expressions 'keeping score' and 'keeping tally' derive from 
this and so do 'stocks' and 'shares', which refer to the splitting of 
such sticks (stocks) along their length and sharing the two matching 
halves as a record of a deal.

If someone is now said to be 'in the nick' the English would expect 
him to be found in prison, the Scots would picture him in the valley 
between two hills and Australians would imagine him to be naked. To 
Shakespeare and his contemporaries if someone were 'in (or at, or 
upon) the (very) nick' they were in the precise place at the precise 
time. Watches and the strings of musical instruments were adjusted to 
precise pre-marked nicks to keep them in proper order. Ben Jonson 
makes a reference to that in the play Pans Anniversary, circa 1637:

For to these, there is annexed a clock-keeper, a grave person, as 
Time himself, who is to see that they all keep time to a nick.

Arthur Golding gave what is likely to be the first example of the use 
of 'nick' in this context in his translation of Ovid's Metamorphosis, 1565:

Another thing cleane overthwart there commeth in the nicke:
The Ladie Semell great with childe by Jove as then was quicke.

The 'time' in 'the nick of time' is rather superfluous, as nick 
itself refers to time. The first example of the use of the phrase as 
we now know it comes in Arthur Day's Festivals, 1615:

Even in this nicke of time, this very, very instant.

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