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According to the Oxford English Dictionary, early usage refers to lines that do not move, such as one used in angling. Slightly later American usage refers to a boundary in a prison which prisoners must not cross. There is only indirect evidence that the sense of "due date" may be connected with this use of the term in prison camps during the American Civil War, when it referred to a physical line or boundary beyond which prisoners were shot. In 1904, in a report from the US Department of Commerce and Labor, the term is used for "minimum work goals" (and in contrast to bonus line): for example, as a typographer the line could be 18,000 ems per day; should one not cross this line, then that could have negative consequences. In 1917, the term is attested as a printing term for a guideline on the bed of a printing press beyond which text will not print. Three years later, the term is found in print in the sense of "time limit" in the closely connected publishing industry, indicating the time after which material would not make it into a newspaper or periodical.
I must make this deadline or my boss will kill me!
2019 October, Rhodri Clark, “TfW seeks PRM derogation for Class 37 sets”, in Modern Railways, page 87:
TfW's plans to meet the PRM deadline and withdraw all Pacers by 1 January have been made more difficult by delays to introduction of Class 769 and 230 units.
^ “Andersonville Prison”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), 2017 April 23 (last accessed), archived from the original on 7 March 2017
^ Wright, C. D. (1904) Regulation and Restriction of Output, United States: U.S. Government Printing Office, pages 53-56
^ “The Mavens' Word of the Day”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), 2013 October 16 (last accessed), archived from the original on 16 October 2013
The declension of this word is problematic. Joukahainen recommends the nalle-type declension, presumably based on the (English) spelling of the nominative of the word:
On the other hand, the nalle-type declension does not fit the pronunciation, which in fact follows the risti-type declension (except in the nominative: /dedlain/), in other words, /dedlainin/, /dedlainia/, etc. in the genitive, partitive, etc. It's probably advisable to avoid using this word in writing and to use Finnish synonyms instead.