Taking Deadlines Seriously

SEELEY LAKE – A deadline is a time limit, a stated time when an assignment is due – or when an article must be submitted to the newspaper editor. If the deadline is missed it might mean an F on a school assignment. Or it might mean an article or ad won’t make it into the next issue of the Seeley Swan Pathfinder. Problematic as those scenarios are, they won’t be fatal. But when the term was first coined, its meaning was deadly serious.

The term originated in American Civil War prison camps. Though there is some evidence “dead line” may have been used earlier and the practice it referred to may...