oh-dark-thirty, oh-dark-hundred

[Wilson Gray]

On 9/23/05, Mullins, Bill <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      oh-dark-thirty, oh-dark-hundred
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "oh-dark-thirty" -- often taken to mean some ungodly early hour, before
> sunrise.  Not in OED.
>
> Texas | Port Arthur | The Port Arthur News | 1970-04-10 p. 7 col 7.
> "Crawfish Festival to Open" by Ruth Crane
> "A variety of dancing is on the program including a Cajun "Fais-Do-Do,"
> square dancing, a Cajun snake dance, a citizens band radio club coffee
> break and dance in the park at 6:30 p.m. and a Rodair club Cajun dance
> on Highway 365 beginning at "dark-thirty." "
>
> "Tolbert's Texas" Frank X. Tolbert Dallas Morning News 1977-02-03 > Sec:
> D Page 3 col 1.
> "The English language is sometimes arranged uniquely in the Hill
> Country.  For sample, if someone wants to tell you not to come to a
> party until after dark they will write it "thirty dark," meaning 30
> minutes after the sun goes down."  [note "for sample" instead of "for
> example"]

"Dusk-dark" - well, "duss-dock" - is what we said, but this is
probably accounted for by the fact that we lived not in the Hill
Country but in the Piney Woods.

-Wilson Gray
>
> "The Sked-Busted, Slam-Clicking Stewardess" by Nancy Ballard
> The Washington Post (1974-Current file); Dec 6, 1981;
> pg. C3 col 2
> "A typical sentence might be, "I went illegal for 228 to LAX and crew
> sked busted my sequence, but that's okay with me 'cause I'll lay over,
> sign in at zero dark hundred, deadhead to base and still get my 4-1/2."
> Translation:  "I can't work my scheduled flight because I've been on
> duty too long, so I'll stay overnight here, get up early and ride as a
> passenger to my home base.  I'll still get paid."
>
>
> Review 9 -- No Title [review of Terry Kay's 1984 novel "Dark Thirty"]
> Jill Grossman
> New York Times (1857-Current file); Dec 23, 1984; pg. BR17
> "Jesse Wade, the patriarch of a rural Georgia family, returns home one
> evening at "dark thirty" (the half-hour between day and night) to find
> his entire family brutally murdered."
>
>
> "NO ANSWERING MACHINE EVER LOOKED LIKE THIS " BY Joan O'C. Hamilton in
> Menlo Park, Calif.; 3 December 1990
> _Business Week _  Pg. 133
> "In sessions that dragged late into what frog employees call
> ''0-dark-hundred hours,'' Harden and Braund noodled, doodled, and
> sketched the possibilities. "
>
>
> Journal of Electronic Defense, Jan 1991 v14 n1 p8(1)
> It's the thought that counts.  (editorial) Hal Gershanoff.
> "This column is already a week overdue and I've yet to pack for an
> "o-dark-thirty" departure in the morning for a hectic week-long business
> trip."
>
>  DUCK HUNTING MEANS MORE THAN CAPTURING THE GAME; [FOURTH Edition]
> BILL MONROE of The Oregonian Staff. The Oregonian. Portland, Or.: Dec
> 16, 1991. pg. C.03
> "It is Oh-dark-thirty (as military veterans sometimes recall their
> predawn reveilles) and the boat is slicing across the glass-smooth
> surface of Scappoose Bay, up the glimmering orange path of a distant
> mill light."

"Zero dark hundred hours," as I recall. But I was in The War some
thirty years earlier than than this cite and slanguage changes over
time.

-Wilson

>
> New York | Syracuse | Syracuse Herald Journal | 1991-11-10 sec I p. 1
> col 1.
> "The Hunt Is On, But Where's The Cat?" by Marie Villari
> "It is way before dawn when the alarm clock goes off. O'dark thirty, he
> calls it. I call it an ungodly hour."
>


--
-Wilson Gray