How Seattle Invented the Term “Graveyard Shift”

Seattle was a busy, bustling place back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. So many cool inventions and useful every day things we use and take for granted originated right here in the Emerald City.

Did you know that one of those cool things that Seattle gave us includes the term, graveyard shift?

I saw this fun fact on a thread in Reddit. Washington has quite a few great communities to follow there, including r/SeattleWA.

Comment
byu/kendraelaborates from discussion
inSeattleWA

WHERE DID GRAVEYARD SHIFT COME FROM?

When I say graveyard shift, I'm not talking about the creepy movie Stephen King from the 90s. I think of workers showing up at the job between the hours of 11 p.m. to 6 in the morning the next day. (Wikipedia says it starts at midnight.)

The Merriam-Webster dictionary says the term graveyard shift first became popular in 1908, while another source says it was heard for other references.

Whether the phrase comes from local lore of workers in 1908 digging up graves at a cemetery in Seattle to avoid being seen during daylight hours or not, our generation has come to know of the graveyard shift as the time of day when most people are sleep but the worker bees have to keep on chugging along.

Other fun words said to have been invented in 1908 include:

Screwball

Turkey Trot

Stir-Crazy

Jigsaw Puzzle and

Kerfuffle

I like to use the word kerfuffle! HA!

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