All in Etymology
One of New York’s honoured New Year’s Eve traditions is the Times Square ‘ball drop’ which starts at 11:59pm on December 31 and ends at precisely 0:00 on New Year’s Day. The ‘time ball’ was originally a visual way to signal time to ships in harbours so they could synchronise their ship clocks - accurate time being a critical way to know your longitude at sea.
Why do we use ‘o’clock’ when telling the time? When mechanical clocks were first introduced in the 14th Century, the most common way to tell time was using a sundial - which often showed a different time than the mechanical clock. Saying ‘of the clock’ (later shortened to ‘o’clock’) let someone know which time you meant.
In 1858, while playing for the All-England 11, English cricketer HH Stephenson took three consecutive wickets in a match against Hallam in Sheffield. As was customary at the time, fans had a collection for Stephenson and then bought him a hat to honour his unique feat. The 'hat-trick' as it became known, was soon adopted by many other sports.
Ever wondered why we call people with ginger locks ‘redheads’, when their hair is clearly orange? That’s because English didn’t distinguish between red and orange until the 1540s, and we’d been using the word ‘redhead’ since the mid-1200s. So what came first, the colour or the fruit? The fruit arrived in England in the 1300s (via Italy), but it took over 200 years for orange to become both a colour and a fruit.
