The History of the word “Deadline”

August 31, 2010

I was recently sent a great email from our Customer Service Manager, Jennifer Ring. Here at Fasturtle® we are constantly working under strict deadlines and we try our best to meet those. We also try to make sure our clients are also meeting those to insure their projects get done on time and with as little delay as possible. We are human; things do get delayed, sometimes projects come in at a rapid pace and things get bunched up with support tickets and internal meetings. That being said, the origin of “deadline” was sent to me and it was very enlightening to say the least.

You have all been warned. :) Here at Fasturtle® we take deadlines seriously.

During the American Civil War, the guards at the notoriously brutal Confederate military prison at Andersonville drew a line on the ground around the perimeter of the compound, a uniform seventeen feet inside the prison walls. Any prisoner crossing over that line was presumed to be trying to reach the wall in order to escape, and was summarily shot. This boundary was known succinctly as “the dead line.” The first appearance in print of this original sense of “deadline” came in the Congressional Record in 1864.

Nice little trivia for your day. Have a great day and if you ever need any interactive marketing done we use “deadlines” :)

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