Earliness

No doubt you’ve heard the proverb, “It’s the early bird that catches the worm.” Those words of wisdom would have a different meaning to you, depending on whether you were a bird or a worm. Not being either, I can nevertheless vouch for the fact that it’s not always easy to get up early, especially after going to bed late. Irving Berlin, in support of army recruitment during World War I, wrote a song of sympathy with the new soldiers, who were not accustomed to one notorious feature of army life – being rudely awakened every day at an ungodly hour. This might not have applied to those with a rural background, who were traditionally accustomed to the daybreak cry of the rooster, which is customarily verbalized as “Cock a Doodle Doo.”

But for many draftees, Irving Berlin’s song told it as it was, and as it probably still is. And instead of the odiously early cry of the rooster, there was the outrageous sound of the bugler blowing “Reveille,” which seemed to echo the words “You’ve got to get up, you’ve got to get up.” 

Irving Berlin himself was drafted in 1918, so the song was truly heartfelt. It began:

Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning!
Oh, how I’d like to remain in bed
But the hardest blow of all
Is to hear the bugler’s call
It then became rather violent:
Some day I’m going to murder the bugler 
Some day you’re going to find him dead –
I’ll amputate his Reveille
And step upon it heavily

Some people considered this a little too gross – especially in England, where the song was widely played. Also there was another problem – the English don’t pronounce the word “Reveille” the same way Americans do – their version sounds more like “Re-Valley.” But this problem was solved, for both countries, when, instead of the “amputate/Reveille” lines, someone cleverly came up with this alternative version.

“And then I’ll get that other pup,

The guy who wakes the bugler up,”

And both versions happily ended with the same line:

“And spend the rest of my life in bed.”

But birds aren’t the only critters that we associate with earliness. We also sometimes speak (even of ourselves) as being “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

It must have been squirrels who originally evoked this image.

Our proverbs are also rich with such behests as, “Early to bed, and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” However, there is also the rejoinder: “Better late than never.”

Then there was the not very grammatical Civil War General, Nathan Bedford Forrest, who is supposed to have attributed his military successes to “getting there firstest with the mostest.” It should also be pointed out that he was on the losing side. This can’t help reminding us of Aesop’s fable about the Hare and the Tortoise, with its inescapable moral that, in the long run, slow and steady wins the race.

“Sooner or later” is another common expression, which found its way into American History in an interesting way. What today we call the State of Oklahoma was originally a large territory occupied only by Native Americans who were then driven out by white settlers. Until 1889 it was officially known simply as “Unassigned Lands.” 

But in that year, President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation that the lands would be open for settlement on a first-arrival basis, effectively producing a massive road race of people scrambling to claim land in the new territory. The territory’s official opening date was March 23, 1889 – and starting pistols were actually fired into the air to signal the official start of this land rush. But there was no way to address the thousands of land-hungry Americans who had already illegally crossed the border in defiance of those arrangements. These rule-breaking line jumpers were now entitled, under the 1862 Homestead Act, to stake a claim to 160 acres of federal land. The sneaky early Oklahomans became known as “Sooners” and – almost inevitably – this new political entity was nicknamed “The Sooner State.” And so their sports teams called themselves the Sooners.

But what became of “Later”? For one thing, back in the 1950s modern teenage slang – which loves silly rhymes, apparently – began saying “See you later, Alligator.” This called forth the almost inevitable response, “After a while, Crocodile.”

But way back in 1908, since other colleges already had animals representing their teams, (the Yale Bulldog, the Princeton Tiger) the University of Florida chose the Alligator for its mascot. And Florida has been the Gator State ever since.

All I can add is one of my own verbal gems:

SOONER OR LATER, I’LL BE PUNCTUAL.