Do you go to bed at stupid O’ clock?

Today’s English
July 21st, 2017

The expression “stupid o’ clock” in English refers to a time of the day which may be extremely early or late.  For example, you may go to interview as early as possible only to see that not even the door of the office is opened.  Similarly you can go to a place after the working hours or at the last moment everything is to be closed.  In such time, you can use the expression “stupid o’ clock”.

1. The customer came to bank at stupid o’ clock and irritated every official there.
2. I have an urgent work tomorrow and don’t wake me up at stupid o’ clock.

We also use “tail end” to refer to the last part of an event, situation, a period of time or anything.  It implies that you are late and therefore missing the beginning or the gone front.

1. I posted my article at the tail end of the day.
2. We heard only the tail end of the news.

If you are doing something at the eleventh hour, it means that you are doing it at the last moment and almost too late.  It implies that you should have done it earlier.  Why eleventh hour?  Twelve o’ clock at midnight is the end of a day as per English calendar.  So it originally meant late at night and now it is used for any time that is too late.  The phrase is actually taken from the Bible, “The Parable of Workers in the Vineyard”.

1. Why don’t you tell this to me earlier?  You often bring it to my knowledge only at the eleventh hour.
2. Yesterday itself you should have arranged for everything.  Why are you running here and there at the eleventh hour?

Have you heard about dilatory tactics? It means that you are intentionally doing something to cause delay.  If something is unpleasant or boring, you can delay doing that and such delay is often  mentioned by the word “procrastinate”.
1. We adopted dilatory tactics and made him come to the office the next day.
2. Do you know why I procrastinate that work?  I’m not at all interested in doing that.

“The problem with procrastination is it’s been around since the beginning of time it seems.”
― Stephen Richards, “The Secret of Getting Started”