Word: offing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Then came trains and factories, and with them the need to coordinate the schedules of hundreds and even thousands of people. It was the railroad companies that invented time zones, in 1883. Because of the earth's rotation, the sun was highest at different times in New York City and...
Factories, meanwhile, required workers to begin their days together: it's no coincidence that inexpensive alarm clocks and wristwatches began appearing at the end of the 1800s. "In the 19th century," says historian Michael O'Malley, author of Keeping Watch: A History of American Time, "we were urged to merge...
It also led to a vicious cycle. Once factory owners realized that time was money--a notion that led to the first so-called efficiency experts in the 1920s--the idea of making every second count began to spread through society. Result: efficiency became an American virtue. Today every conceivable...
Technology continues to make things worse. Before digital clocks and watches became common, people rounded to the nearest five minutes when telling each other the time: now we give the exact minute. Before cell phones and faxes and answering machines, we accepted being out of touch. Before the Internet, we...