Etymology of Graveyard Shift

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kenny from Brookings, Oregon.

I was wondering if you could tell me the origin of the term graveyard shift.

This is the overnight shift, like the third shift, right?

Yes.

So, why are you asking?

Well, I work for a mortuary out here.

Wait, what are the chances? Really?

Really, yes.

You work for a mortuary on the graveyard shift?

Well, I was originally hired for graveyard shift 7 at night to 7 in the morning, and it only took a few days, and I was on call 24-7.

Okay, I have to take the opportunity here because we don’t get to talk with somebody every day who does the graveyard shift at a mortuary.

What do you do?

Well, I started out actually doing just removals from accident scenes, natural causes, whatnot.

And it moved into cremation work, very little clerical work, working funerals, memorial services.

So back to the original topic, you’re asking about graveyard shift.

You just kind of want to know why it’s called that, right?

Yes. I mean, I can only speculate where it first came from, but I’m not really sure.

Yeah, well, I think it’s just the idea of those still dark hours when everybody else is asleep as people are in a cemetery, figuratively.

Yeah, it’s basically those hours of the night when it’s just you and the dead and the seemingly dead, right?

It’s the darkest time of the 24-hour clock.

It’s not that it started in cemeteries or mortuaries.

It didn’t start with grave diggers or anything like that.

It started out as figurative from the very beginning.

You can find it more than 100 years ago, so the expression’s been around for a while.

Miners used it in the 1890s, I know, but probably earlier than that still.

Yeah, see, I figured it was probably something to do with maybe the grave diggers used to do all their work at night so they wouldn’t disturb other people, or I don’t know.

No, no, it’s more to do with the darkness and the quiet of the time.

So a graveyard is kind of a dark, quiet place, or can be at night, right?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I’m thinking about the origin of the word cemeteries from Greek, meaning to put to sleep.

I think it’s related to words having to do with beds.

Mm—

So I think that’s the idea.

Just everybody else is there still as people in a cemetery.

Will that do you, Kenny?

That’ll do me, yeah.

Thanks, Kenny.

All right.

Thank you for your help.

All right.

Take care, sir.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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