Good Friday: The Deadline
I’m out of town today, writing this from the quasi-solitude of a beachside house in Bodega Bay, California. It’s a working getaway and a quiet place to think and write and read. Sort of. Honestly though, I miss being at the office, especially today. For the past few days it seems like the doorbell is constantly ringing — first FedEx, then UPS, then DHL, then the regular mail carrier, then the late FedEx, then the late UPS, all interspersed with the occasional courier. I know Ethan also fielded a few phone calls from designers trying to coordinate an extension. As of a little before midnight yesterday I’d responded to 44 emails inquiring along similar lines. If experience is any lesson, today will only be more intense.
That brings us to the concept of the deadline. At least in the design industry, every competition has three deadlines: The promoted deadline, the extended deadline, and the real deadline. The advertised deadline is the one most people meet. Procrastinators can generally rely on that date being extended the day of the “official” cutoff expires. The real deadline is usually the day before the judging (depending on who, how persuasive or how charming you are).
If you’re interested, the word deadline has roots in the American Civil War. Prisoners of war were held in camps or stockades, not all of which had fences. In their place, a dirt line was physically inscribed around the perimeter. Prisoners were instructed to stay within that line or they would be shot (as in dead) — a slightly more effective deterrent than our modern-day concept of the deadline.
Monday night, DEADLINE was the answer to the Final Jeopardy question. Two out of three guests wrote HEADLINE. The question was:
“Before its use in journalism, it meant a boundary beyond which straying prisoners would be shot.”