How long have you been hearing "at the end of the day" in common use?

I’ve definitely been hearing it for longer than since 2000. I do remember hearing someone say “Ugh! I hate that phrase” and thinking “Oh, so people aren’t saying that anymore?” and if I had to guess, I’d say even that was earlier than 2000.

Thinking about it, I wonder if it was common in UK speech first, then gradually invaded the US.

I don’t remember a time of not knowing the phrase in this context. My grandfather used it often in regular conversation like, “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how you vote.”

@Jeruba, what do you make of this?

For as long as I can remember.

I live in Mexico. I’m 28, and speak English fluently since I’m 13.

As long as I can remember. I am 45 grew up in NY and MD, also lived in MI, NC, FL, and TN. I don’t think I heard it much in the south come to think of it.

All my life it’s common usage here.

Excellent link @bkcunningham

@_bob Mexican, American… At the end of the day, that makes you qualified enough to give a response.

@Blueroses Why, thank you. You have a very nice bottom line yourself.

* innocent lost-in-translation look *

Phrases like this can be around forever, but suddenly they gain traction for some reason, especially in the cliche’-ridden business world.

At the last company I worked, you could walk into the Conference Room and KNOW for certain that in under two hours you’d hear “at the end of the day” and the sickeningly-popular “move forward” at least two or three times each.

According to this page:

The earliest is from Henry McKeating’s book God and the Future (1974): “Eschatological language is useful because it is a convenient way of indicating … what at the end of the day we set most store by.” (The italics are McKeating’s.)

I am Indian. It hear it everyday:

You should complete your task by the end of the day.

Edit: I hear it everyday. It’s 1 a.m.. I gotta sleep. :)

I think it really took off in the 80s in my neck of the woods. East coast, and I heard it everywhere.

I do not hear it much. What I have been hearing lately is the phrase “back in the day,” which I find irritating.

It is so common, it never even hit my radar until you pointed it out with this question. Yesterday, I was watching Hell’s Kitchen and I swear I started counting “At the end of the day…” and it was 13 in 2 hours.

The phrase I only recently noticed that is popping up everywhere now is “In my wheelhouse” or “Out of my wheelhouse”. How long has that one been around?

@misty123 and others, I’m not speaking of the use of the phrase in a literal sense, meaning, you know, the end of the day (or even the end of the working day). As the question details state, I’m interested in the metaphorical sense, meaning (as other idioms have it) “when all is said and done” or “when all the dust settles.”

I guess some of you have been hearing it longer than I have, and I’m pretty quick to notice when a phrase becomes popular. That’s a great link, @bkcunningham. Thanks. I’m not sure the oldest cited uses were instances of cliches—they may well have been the poets’ own metaphorical constructions. (A lot of cliches originate as very creative figurative language. It’s overuse that makes them trite.)

What I was trying to find out is whether it’s anachronistic to put the phrase into the mouth of a fictional character in Victorian England. It seemed out of place to me, sounding much too contemporary to be authentic, but these findings are not definitive.

It does sound too modern for the character, at least to me.