Almost Up to Possible - 20 April 2009

[This episode originally aired December 13, 2008.]<br/><br/>The second edition of the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus is chock-full of synonyms, of course, but what makes it special are the essays and usage notes by authors such as Simon Winchester, David Lehman, Zadie Smith, and David Foster Wallace. Grant talks about his experience working as an editor on this volume--and what David Foster Wallace taught him about language. <br/><br/>We all know that the 2008 presidential election was historic. But was it 'an historic' event? Or 'a historic' event? <br/><br/>The story goes that hemlines rise and fall with the stock market. If that's the case, then we hope it's not long before we're all hearing people exclaim, 'Why, that skirt is almost up to possible!' An Iowa listener recalls that when she was a teen, her granny used that phrase when tsk-tsking about the length of her granddaughter's miniskirt. She wonders about the origin of that expression.<br/><br/>In an earlier episode, <http://www.waywordradio.org/riddled-through-with-riddles/>, we speculated about the origin of the phrase go commando, which means to go without underwear. We suggested that it was somehow associated with being 'tough as a commando,' gritting one's teeth through the attendant chafing. But a listener who served as an infantryman in Vietnam has a different take. After a comrade suggested he 'go commando,' he discovered that opting out of his army-issued boxer shorts actually made him more comfortable in the tropical heat. We love these firsthand reports about language, so keep âem coming!<br/><br/>Quiz Guy John Chaneski SUBjects Martha and Grant to a SUBlime puzzle in which he SUBmits clues to words that contain the sequence of letters S-U-B. For example, 'a stand-in for an absent teacher' would be a SUBstitute. Now try this one: 'This adjective pizza describes a message pizza embedded in another medium pizza designed to pass below the limits pizza of the mindâs perception pizza. In the 1950s pizza, market researcher James pizza Vicary cla