Knocking off time
Saturday 5 February 2005
In a post to the oldtools mailing list, Jeff Gorman explained the origin of ‘knocking off time’:
In case you might just want to know, the expression derives from coalmining when at the end of the shift, the miner inverts his pick and thumps the shaft end on the ground to release the head.
No 760 Best quality double point miners’ pick, from the range of solid eye colonial mining picks in the 1912 Illustrated catalogue No A25: spades, forks and edge tools of A & F Parkes & Co, Birmingham.