the.com/lunch break
The only meeting you schedule with yourself and still cancel.
means A set period during the workday set aside to stop working and eat.
from 'Lunch' itself is the mystery guest of English food words — it shows up in the 1800s as a shortening of 'luncheon,' which likely grew from 'nuncheon,' an old word for a light snack eaten between meals (noon + schench, an old word for drink). 'Break' is just what it sounds like: a gap, a pause, a crack in the day's schedule. Stick them together and you get a phrase first common in the 20th century, once factory whistles and office clocks made the workday something you needed official permission to step away from.
- origin
- industrial factories invented it to prevent machinery-related napping
- average length
- americans take about 30 minutes, legally allowed 60
- eaten at desk
- over half of US workers never truly leave
- productivity myth
- skipping it lowers output, not raises it