New in Town

New Years got me thinking about time recently. With the ending of one year and the start of another, the celebration of New Years is a big marker of time. A whole year has gone by. We all have to remember to change that ending two in 2012 to three in 2013, after all. We follow small changes in time every day: From taking a five-minute break to the hours we spend at work, the changing of the months and seasons to the end of the year, time flows around us every moment. Sometimes were so aware of it that every second ticking on the clock seems to last an age. Other times the days and weeks fly by, and time slips through our fingers like water.

In her feature story, Marilyn Gilbaugh quotes the old adage that time and tide wait for no man.

Looking into the history of the phrase, I found that the source is murky, to say the least. And the etymology is interesting, considering that New Years is around the corner and that we also live in a place where the tide and water itself are important: to our location, livelihoods and identity.

At first reading of the saying, we assign specific meanings to the words: time, a continuum of events that stretches from the past to the future, and tide, the alternate rising and falling of a body of water. Both are natural occurrences, and the message behind the saying is clear: No one is powerful enough to interfere with nature, so dont procrastinate or delay because events are beyond your control; the ship will sail without you.

The saying is thought to predate Old English. Its underlying message about the powerlessness of humanity was certainly understood as far back as the rule of Canute the Great, who was king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden from 1018-1035. According to historian Henry of Huntingdon, King Canute had his throne carried to the sea shore and ordered the waves not to break on his land. When the water ignored him, he proclaimed, Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless, and there is no King worthy of the name save Him by whose will heaven and earth and sea obey eternal laws (Historia Anglorum, ed D E Greenway). Rather than an embarrassing episode of arrogance, the king was showing his humility.

The earliest written recording of the phrase dates back to the Middle English of St. Marher in 1225: And te tide and te time þat tu iboren were, schal beon iblescet, which roughly translates to something like the tide nor time abides for, tarrieth for no man. A version of the phrase raises its head again in the late 1300s, in The Clerks Tale, part of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer: Though we sleep, or wake, or roam, or ride / Aye fleeth time, it will no man abide. After that, youll find the phrase splattered in various forms across the pages of history.

Time flies and the world moves on without us. Upon closer inspection, the message itself is illustrated in the very definition of tide the meaning of the word has changed dramatically over the centuries.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word tide originally meant a portion, extent, or space of time; an age, a season, a time, a while and could also mean a point in the duration of the day, month or year … in reference to an action or repetition; occasion. You might recall those archaic words like morrow-tide, noontide or eventide now we call them morning, noon and evening, but back then tide helped to distinguish a specific part of a day. This sense of the word is still with us, such as in the phrase good tidings, which refers to a good event.

Thus, in the adage time and tide wait for no man, the two words were originally an alliterative reduplication: synonyms that sounded good next to each other and emphasized the phrases meaning through repetition.

The word tide began to more exclusively mean tide of the sea around 1500. This modern definition probably stems from the meaning the time of high water or the space of time between low and high water. The meaning may have been borrowed from a similar Middle Low German word. Or the transference of sense could have gradually happened over the years, much like the changes wrought by an ebbing tide to a shoreline.

It all goes to show that the message behind the words is real. Not even language is immune to the flow of time.

So on Dec. 31, as you celebrate the ending of one year and the start of 2013, savor the feeling whether youre alone, at a party, or with family and friends because though its just a moment in time, its also a good one.