It’s High Time
Q.
Finally. It’s about time. Or, as many say: “it’s high time.” Why is it ‘high’ time?
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A.
This has nothing to do with 4/20, or that terrifying moment when your swimming teacher insists you leap to your doom from the high diving board.
‘It’s high time’ is a phrase that dates back to at least the 14th Century. The ‘high’ refers to the sun being at its peak height in the sky. If you’re a farmer, you best get your work done, if you haven’t finished already.
↝ We see the phrase in Romans 13:11 of the King James version of the Bible, published in 1611:
‘And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.’
↝ We see the phrase in Shakespeare’s ‘Comedy of Errors’, written in the late 1500s. Antipholus of Syracuse says:
‘There’s none but witches do inhabit here;
And therefore ‘tis high time that I were hence.’
↝ And we revisit the phrase in Tolkein’s 1954 ‘The Fellowship of the Ring.’
‘They went on for perhaps another couple of miles. Then the sun gleamed out of ragged clouds again and the rain lessened. It was now past mid-day, and they felt it was high time for lunch.’
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