"out" = "later"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Interesting question, but the answer is undoubtedly no.  The "out" in "the day is out" means "over."  In the TV ex., logic and syntax require "later, after, further ahead in time."  OED _out_, adv., 4.c. doesn't cover this.  A close synonym is "on" (OED, _on,_ adv., 4.d, 1886):  "Forty years on...." (Cf. "from here on out.")

  "Along" is also similar: "Five years along, what have we learned ?"  None of the OED exx. under _along_ ,C.1.b, illustrate this phrase-final position, but semantically they are pretty indistinguishable from it; e.g., 1883: "Far along in the day, we saw one steamboat."

  All these usages are frequent in American broadcast journalism.

  JL

Boris Dagaev <boris.dagaev at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Boris Dagaev
Subject: Re: "out" = "later"
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Could it simply mean "five years have (almost) passed"? A googled example:
"We'll have the submission page running again before the day is out."
(http://www.sorryeverybody.com)

On 9/9/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: "out" = "later"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Fox News guy:
>
> "Five years out, what lessons have we learned from 9/11 ?"
>
> JL
>
>
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