Green Eyed Monster - 9 March 2015

<p>This week on "A Way with Words": We often hear that English is going to hell in a handbasket. Actually, though, linguistic handwringing about sinking standards and sloppy speech has been going on for centuries--at least as far back as the 1300's! And: language also changes to fit the needs the workplace. Take, for example, the slang of flight attendants. Listen on your next trip, and you might overhear them talking about landing lips, flying dirty, or crew juice. Plus, a discreet phrase from Arabic for advising someone that he has food in his beard. All this, plus a word game based on Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," dead as a doornail, the green-eyed monster, and learning that fat meat is greasy.<br /><br /><br />FULL DETAILS<br /><br />It turns out the creativity of flight attendants doesn't stop with the pre-takeoff safety demonstration; they have slang for all kinds of fun stuff, from the lipstick they apply before passengers deplane (landing lips) to the 2-for-1 special, which is when the plane hits the runway upon landing, then bounces up and lands again.  <br /><br />Dead as a doornail is a common idiom, but what exactly is a doornail, and why is it dead? The saying goes at least as far back as the 1350's, and may simply refer to the fact that the nails used to make big, heavy doors were securely fixed in place--the modifier dead having the same sort of unequivocal sense suggested in the expression dead certain.<br /><br />What do flight attendants call that point in takeoff preparations when they walk up and down the aisle to make sure seatbelts are securely fastened? It's the crotch watch, also known as a groin scan. The expression flying dirty refers to when the plane is traveling with all its slats, flaps and wheels hanging down.<br /><br />The term green-eyed monster, meaning jealousy, first appears in Shakespeare's Othello, when Iago says, "Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy!/ It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock/ The meat it feeds on."<br /><br />A stepmother slice, according to