Tag: Linguistics

Q: I constantly hear people say “the man that did something” or “the woman that went somewhere.” Shouldn’t it be “the man who did something” or “the woman who went somewhere”? Or did I fall asleep again in English class?

A: Despite what many people believe, a person can be either a “that” or a “who.” There’s no grammatical foundation for the belief that it’s incorrect to refer to a person as a “that” (“the man that I marry,” “the girl that married dear old dad,” and so on).

A thing, on the other hand, is always a “that.” As for pets, they aren’t people, but they aren’t quite things either. If an animal is anonymous, it’s a “that.” If it has a name, it can be either a “that” or a “who.” (“I’m looking for a dog that can act; Lassie is a dog who could direct her own movie.”)

Getting back to people, there may be a “politeness” issue here. Some folks seem to think using “that” in place of “who” or “whom” demeans or objectifies a human being. Still, there’s no grammatical reason for such a rule, even though many style books persist in spreading the misconception.

A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage, by Bergen Evans and Cornelia Evans, has this to say on the issue: “That has been the standard relative pronoun for about eight hundred years and can be used in speaking of persons, animals, or things. … Three hundred years ago who also became popular as a relative. It was used in speaking of persons and animals but not of things. This left English with more relative pronouns than it has any use for. … Who may in time drive out that as a relative referring to persons, but it has not yet done so.”

For more about these two little words, see the “Who’s That” box in the first chapter of Woe Is I.

Q: My last name is O’Connor and I was always told by my Irish relatives that there was no such spelling of O’Connor with an “er” at the end. Can you explain why Patricia’s last name ends that way?

A: Your family is right. The correct spelling of our last name is “O’Connor.” In my case, the name got misspelled somewhere along the way, beginning with my father’s generation. My birth certificate actually has the misspelling, as does my sister’s. I always wanted to change it back but never did and now it’s too late. Sigh.

Q: Would you comment on the overuse of the word “doable”? I hear it all the time. Also, why do people coin a new word like that when there are plenty of older ones around that can do the job? How about “achievable,” “attainable,” “conceivable,” “possible,” “viable,” and “workable”?

A: I do agree that “doable” (meaning able to be done) is vastly overused, and often there’s a better alternative. In addition to the ones you mention, “practicable” and “feasible” come to mind.

In its defense I should mention that “doable” is not a recent coinage. Believe it or not, this adjective has been in use for well over five centuries. The Oxford English Dictionary cites published references that go back to 1449. The noun “doer” (meaning one who does) is even older, with the earliest published reference from the 1300s.

So yes, “doable” is overused. But it’s a legitimate usage and still with us after all these centuries, probably because none of the alternatives have exactly the same meaning.

Q: I have been an Internet technologist and heavy email user for 20 years. I love Woe Is I, but I find your use of “an email” and “a few hundred emails” really grating. I’ll admit that this has become common usage, but I cannot understand why you would condone it. Until the Internet went public, “email,” like “mail,” was a mass noun. To me this makes a lot of sense. I certainly wouldn’t say “I wrote my grandmother a mail”; nor would I write “the postman pushed several mails through the slot.” Why not “I just received three pieces of spam, two replies regarding the bid, and a video clip of Wendy’s dog,” rather than “I just received six emails”? Or why not say “I’ll send it to you as an email attachment” instead of “I’ll email it to you”? Isn’t meaning being lost?

A: When I wrote the second edition of Woe Is I, there were style issues to be decided: how to write the word “email” (hyphen? capital?); whether to use it as a verb (“to email”); whether to use it as a noun meaning a single email message (“an email”); whether to use “emails” as the plural form (“three emails”), and so on. At the time, usage was all over the map. I weighed the alternatives, took into account what newspapers and book publishers were doing, kept abreast of changing dictionary usage, tuned in to what email users themselves were writing and saying, and most of all tried to anticipate emerging preferences and decide what seemed most natural and most likely to enter the public lexicon.

I think I made the right choices. There are no good reasons to prohibit using “email” as a verb or as a noun in both singular and plural forms. Otherwise we’re stuck with confining “email” to an adjective or to a generic noun meaning the medium itself.

Yes, meaning is being lost if you say “I just received six emails” instead of “I just received three pieces of spam, two replies regarding the bid, and a video clip of Wendy’s dog.” But there’s nothing to prevent you from being more specific if you want to be. Lots of people do. The point is, we have choices. In the end, individuals don’t decide what becomes “acceptable” English. The world at large does. Like it or not (and I don’t like a lot of it), common usage eventually becomes the standard. Thanks for your thoughtful email message. (Is that OK?)

Q: I heard you discussing the word “hinky” on the air. A friend of mine from California uses it to mean “shifty” or “jumpy” or “nervous.” It has a vaguely criminal connotation. Did you ever find out where it comes from?

A: The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang has an entry for “hincty,” which it describes as a Black English term dating from the 1920s. It originally meant snobbish, fastidious, or aloof. Random House says the origin is unknown. The Oxford English Dictionary says some people have suggested “hincty” might be a clipped form of “handkerchief-head” (that is, an Uncle Tom), but the connection hasn’t been demonstrated.

Back to Random House: A later variant (spelled variously “hincty,” “hinkty,” “hankty,” and finally “hinky”), is described as an underground or police term for suspicious, wary, paranoid, nervous, jumpy, or even arousing suspicion (as in “Something hinky is going on”). Urbandictionary.com describes “hinky” as meaning, among other things, “Something as yet undefinable is wrong, out of place; not quite right.” Many online slang sites say much the same.

The question arises whether these are really two different terms—one meaning snobbish, the other meaning paranoid—or whether one meaning evolved from another.

It’s hard to say. But it’s worth noting that the OED has an entry for “hink,” an old and obscure Scots noun meaning a hesitation or a misgiving; a separate verb form means to limp or falter. This might indicate that the “hinky” that means nervous or jumpy is a different “hinky” altogether. We may never know.

Q: My question is whether the word “none” can ever take the plural, as in “none are.” I see “none” as a contraction of “not” and “one,” and if this is true it should obviously be followed by “is.” But I hear “none” used in the plural so often—even by fine writers—that sometimes I wonder. If it is strictly a singular word, we need one for the plural, maybe a contraction of “not” and “any,” something like “nany.”

A: The word “none” can be either singular or plural, but it’s more likely to be plural.

Contrary to what many people think, “none” does not always mean “not one.” Historically, its derivation is closer in meaning to “not any.”

The word in Old English was nan, so your suggestion of a contraction “nany” isn’t all that far out.

What to remember: When “none” means “none of them,” it’s plural. Example: “None of the cookies were eaten.” When “none” means “none of it,” it’s singular. Example: “None of the cake was eaten.”

If you really do mean “not one,” my advice is to say “not one.”

You can find more misconceptions about English in “The Living Dead” chapter of my book Woe Is I or on the Grammar Myths page of Grammarphobia.com.

Q: In the course of your recent fun discussion with Leonard Lopate about the English language, you speculated that “gruesome” was derived from the old English word “grue.” I suggest that a more likely origin is the German “grausam.” Do you have any further thoughts on this subject?

A: The Oxford English Dictionary says “gruesome” comes to us from the Middle English verb “grue,” which means to feel terror. The word “grue,” in turn, may have been borrowed from similar words in old German, Dutch, Danish, or Swedish languages. So, one can make the case that both the English word “gruesome” and the German word “grausam” are derived from the various Germanic versions of “grue.” The OED’s earliest reference for “grue” is from 1300 and its earliest reference for “gruesome” is from 1570.

An interesting footnote: John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins points out that “gruesome” was used in only Scotland and northern England for more than two centuries. It didn’t become a common English word until Sir Walter Scott began using it in his novels in the early 19th century.

Q: I heard you discussing the frequent use of the word “issue” these days to mean an objection or a complaint, as in “to have issues with somebody.” This isn’t a question, but the discussion reminded me of a less frequent use of the word “issue” now: Henry the VIII had issues. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get the male issue he wanted until he’d gone through 3 wives!

A: Reminds me of an old Burma Shave ditty: “Henry the Eighth … sure had trouble. … short-term wives … long-term stubble. … Burma Shave.”

The Oxford English Dictionary‘s earliest reference for the use of “issue” as offspring dates back to the late 14th century. The OED‘s earliest citation for “issue” as a subject of controversy or dispute dates back to the early 15th century. But my CD version of the OED doesn’t include the phrase “to have issues with,” indicating that the usage is relatively recent. A discussion about the expression on Google Answers suggests that it might have originated as college slang in the 1990s or Gateway computer jargon, though I can’t vouch for either.

Q: The Chicago Manual of Style says “Ms.” should have a period, but Gloria Steinem and the other feminists who popularized the term don’t use a period. Which is right?

A: In matters of style, there’s no absolutely correct or incorrect call. In grammar perhaps, but not in style.

Most American stylebooks, however, will advise using a period for an honorific, with the exception of “Miss,” which is not an abbreviation. One might argue that “Ms.” isn’t an abbreviation of anything, either. But the fact remains that it is not a noun on its own, and exists only as a courtesy title before a name.

It’s worth noting that in Britain, “Mr” and other titles are used without periods. That’s a peculiarity of British style.

Q: My boss corrected me for writing “with John and me” in a memo. He insisted that I should have said “with John and I.” I didn’t want to get into an argument, but he was wrong, wasn’t he?

A: Yes, you were right. Mistakenly using “I” for “me” is probably the most common grammatical error in English. Nobody makes a mistake when “I” or “me” is used alone. No one (at least no grown-up) says “with I” or “me went.” So if you can’t choose between “I” and “me,” it helps to mentally eliminate the other guy: “with [John or] me” or “[John and] I went.” You can find more hints about solving “I” vs. “me” problems in the first chapter of Woe Is I.

Q: Where did the slang expression “eighty-six it” come from? The common understanding of this phrase is to get rid of something, but how did this come to be?

A: The noun “eighty-six” is restaurant slang “indicating that the supply of an item is exhausted, or that a customer is not to be served,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED’s earliest published reference is from 1936: “Eighty-six, item on the menu not on hand.”

The verb “eight-six,” according to the OED, means “to eject or debar (a person) from premises; to reject or abandon.” The OED gives this citation from 1959: “Eighty-sixed some square bankers from the temple.”

As for the origin of “eighty-six it,” the short answer is that the expression probably originated as rhyming slang for “nix it.” But there are a lot of other theories, including one supposedly involving a Prohibition-era speakeasy named Chumley’s at 86 Bedford Street in New York City. Michael Quinion’s Web site World Wide Words has an informative item on “eighty-six.”

Q: I am English and I don’t understand why Americans say “horseback riding.” In England, we just say “riding” or “horse riding.” It’s taken for granted that the back is the place of choice. I don’t know why it bothers me so much.

A: The term “horseback” is very old, and published references go back to the late 1300s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. You can find it used as a noun, which sounds very odd to modern ears, and even as a verb. More commonly, it has been used as an adverb or adjective. Here’s an OED citation from 1390: “This knight, whiche hoved and abode Embuisshed upon horsebake.”

Now, to your question. The expressions “horseback ride” and “horseback riding,” according to the OED, are now “used chiefly in U.S.; in England, ride, riding are understood to be on horseback, unless otherwise expressed or implied, as ‘a ride in a wagon,’ ‘a bicycle ride.’ “

I haven’t found any reason for this difference in contemporary usage. It’s been my experience, though, that horsemen and horsewomen in the U.S. use “ride” and “riding” the same way they’re used in the U.K. Non-riders or occasional riders in the U.S. are more likely to refer to “horseback riding.”

Q: Does the old expression that begins “where ignorance is bliss …” finish with “it follows to be wise” or with “ ’tis fallow to be wise”? The first one makes little sense to me. I think the second is right because it uses the agrarian idea of a field left fallow, where nothing productive is growing.

A: The expression comes from Thomas Gray’s poem “On a Distant Prospect of Eton College.” The lines read, in part: “… where ignorance is bliss, / ’Tis folly to be wise.” You can find the whole poem on Bartleby.com.

Q: I use a lot of dots like these ……….. in my e-mail. It’s a sort of stream of consciousness thing …….. a conversational way of expressing myself. What’s the correct way to use them?

A: The dots you’re talking about are called ellipsis points or ellipses. They usually come in threes, like so … and they’re supposed to signal that the writer has deliberately omitted something. When the omission comes at the end of the sentence, there’s a period added, so there are then a total of four dots. But in the middle of a sentence there should be only three.

You frequently see ellipsis points in quotations, since the writer often doesn’t want to quote everything the speaker said: Mr. Smith said, “I’m happy to be here … and to see all my old friends.” That indicates the quote was actually longer but the writer is omitting some of it. Or maybe there was an obscenity the writer doesn’t want to repeat: “Get your … feet off the table!”

Another use of ellipsis points is to indicate a trailing off at the end of a sentence, often with the final period omitted, like this: I saw the train hurtling toward the bridge, then …

As for the “stream of consciousness” stuff, some people use these dots in their e-mails to string together a bunch of disorganized ideas. Not a good use of ellipsis points!

Q: Senator John Edwards uses the word “affluent” frequently and pronounces it with the accent on the second syllable. My dictionary says it should be on the first syllable. Can you tell me what is correct?

A: The correct pronunciation is “AFF-loo-ent” (short “a” as in “apple,” accent on the first syllable). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language allows a second pronunciation for “affluent” with the stress on the second syllable. It’s less common, though, and it doesn’t sound very fluent to me.

Q: I used the expression “sex maniac” (pardon me) in a paper I wrote about a story written in the early 1900’s. I was told the term would have been an anachronism at that time. Where can I find out when it came into use?

A: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first published reference to “sex maniac” appeared in 1895 in a novel, Rose of Dutcher’s Coolly, by Hamlin Garland: “The brakeman came through and eyed her with the glare of a sex-maniac.”

Garland (1860-1940) was a prolific and popular American novelist. This novel is about a farm girl who, much like Garland himself, leaves farm life behind to become an author.

Q: Does the expression “heart on sleeve” come from jousting? In medieval times, a knight would wear a piece of silk the color of his lady’s livery on his sleeve as a sign to spectators of his devotion.

A: The earliest published reference, as far as I can tell, comes from Shakespeare. In Othello, Iago says: “But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve / For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.”

Where Shakespeare got it, heaven only knows. But I think you’re right—the jousting business sounds like the most plausible explanation.

In tournaments in the tilting-yard at Whitehall, the knight designated as the “champion” of Queen Elizabeth I wore the Queen’s glove pinned to the flap of his hat.

According to the 19th-century Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, in medieval times a knight would tie his lady’s “favor” (scarf or ribbon or whatnot) around his arm as a way of symbolically dedicating his performance in the tournament to her. Thus, you might say that just by looking at his sleeve, an observer would know to which lady his “heart” was dedicated.

Q: Do you know the etymology of “hot dog”? I presume it’s American.

A: Yes, “hot dog” (meaning the frankfurter in a bun) was American student lingo, probably originating on the Yale campus circa 1894-95.

The Oxford English Dictionary’s first two citations for “hot dog” (in the sense of a hot sausage or a sausage inside a roll of bread) are from 1900. Both are American. But there’s more to the story. It’s been the subject of some dissension over the years.

One common myth is that the name “hot dog” was coined by the cartoonist T.A. Dorgan, known as Tad, in the early 1900’s when he drew hot dogs as dachshunds in buns. Other myths are that the hot dog was first sold at the Polo Grounds, Coney Island, or the St. Louis World’s Fair.

Barry Popik and other word sleuths have found that in the late 19th century Yale students began referring to the lunch wagons that sold hot sausages in buns as “dog wagons.” In 1895, the Yale Record referred to these sausages as “hot dogs.”

If you’d like to know more, Michael Quinion’s website, World Wide Words, and Barry Popik’s website, The Big Apple, have informative entries about the origin of “hot dog.”

Q: Is it grammatically sound to use the word “disrespect” as a verb, as in “You are disrespecting me” or “Please don’t disrespect your father”? By extension, is the verb “dis” accepted now?

A: The Oxford English Dictionary is full of surprises. “Disrespect” has been used as a verb since the early 17th century. The OED, whose first citation is from 1614, defines the verb “disrespect” this way: “The reverse of to respect; to have or show no respect, regard, or reverence for; to treat with irreverence.”

By extension, as you say, the short form “dis” makes a lot of sense. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language now recognizes “dis” as an “informal” verb meaning “to show disrespect to” someone.

[Note: An updated and expanded post about “willy-nilly” was published on Nov. 6, 2020.]

A: Where does the phrase “willy-nilly” come from?

Q: The first citation for “willy-nilly” in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1608. The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology says it’s a contraction of “will I, nill I” or “will he, nill he” or “will ye, nill ye.” The word “nill” is from the Old English “nyllan,” a combination of “ne” (no) and “willan” (will). The phrase “willy-nilly” means “unwillingly” or “haphazardly.”

Q: You were discussing the expression “take a flier” the other day on the Leonard Lopate Show. I think that it derives from the famous Flexible Flyer sleds and that “taking a flier” means taking a wild ride, taking a chance—just as we used to do when we were kids by sledding without helmets.

A: I like the sledding image, but I didn’t find any mention of the Flexible Flyer in my research on the expression. The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang gives several meanings for “take a flier (or flyer).” I’ve added a few parenthetical notes from the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. to place a bet or make a wager (the OED dates this to the 19th century);
2. to invest or speculate (ditto);
3. to make an attempt at something;
4. to make a suicidal leap;
5. to run off (OED: as far back as the 15th century, an escapee or fugitive was called a “flier”).

Q: In a recent appearance on WNYC, you discussed the phrase “no room to swing a cat” and said its origin was not known. I believe it refers to the difficulty of swinging a cat-o’-nine-tails on the crowded deck of a Royal Navy warship in olden days.

A: Several other radio listeners, and many Internet references, suggest (or even insist) that the expression refers to the use of the cat-o’-nine-tails on British naval ships. But I haven’t found any authoritative sources that back this up.

In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest citation for “swing a cat” comes 30 years before the earliest citation for “cat-o’-nine-tails” and 123 years before the use of the word “cat” as a short form of “cat-o’-nine-tails.” All this suggests that “swing a cat” was in use well before the word “cat” was used to mean a whip.

A likelier and perhaps more gruesome explanation lies in the use of cats in target practice during the 16th century. E. Cobham Brewer’s 1898 Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says sometimes “two cats were swung by their tails over a rope.” At other times, according to the dictionary, a cat in a bag or a sack or a leather bottle “was swung to the bough of a tree.”

Shakespeare refers to the practice in Much Ado About Nothing: “If I do, hang me in a bottle like a Cat, and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam.”

One final note. When Mark Twain used the phrase “swing a cat” in the 19th century in Innocents Abroad, he was obviously referring to a cat of the feline variety: “Notwithstanding all this furniture, there was still room to turn around in, but not to swing a cat in, at least with entire security to the cat.”

Q: I have a question regarding the use of the words “and” or “but” to begin sentences. All through my years of education I was taught that it is improper to begin a sentence with them. I am aware that there are exceptions, but I’m not sure what they are. Can you help?

A: Contrary to popular opinion (if not popular usage), there’s no grammatical foundation to the prohibition against starting a sentence with the conjunctions “and” or “but.” It’s one of the most common myths about English grammar.

Some English teachers have enforced the mistaken notion that these conjunctions should be used only to join elements within a sentence, not to join one sentence with another. Not so! It’s been common practice to begin sentences with “and” or “but” since at least as far back as the tenth century. But don’t overdo it or your writing will sound monotonous.

Q: My friends and I have an ongoing debate about the nature of language. I describe language as organic in the sense that it is constantly growing and changing, and my friends disagree with that statement on several levels. First, they say I shouldn’t use the word “organic” that way. Second, they say language is structured with rules and isn’t free flowing. Do you have any ideas on the subject?

A: This is a big question.

You could say that language is organic, if by “organic” you mean having characteristics in common with living organisms. After all, language doesn’t exist independently of the living beings who use it. Many linguists believe that language or the ability to construct language is wired into our DNA, and I think they’re right.

Similarly, we tend to adapt language to fit our needs. We may feel at times that we are training ourselves to conform to some ideal of language perfection, but that “ideal” is itself a human invention. Generation after generation, we discard outdated vocabulary, pronunciations, even what have been considered “rules,” because they no longer serve as aids to communication—we no longer recognize those signals because they aren’t useful anymore.

For example, it was believed for a (very brief) time a couple of hundred years ago that an English sentence shouldn’t end with a preposition. Why? Because English had emerged gradually and informally and naturally, and concern about rules came later. When questions of grammar arose in the 18th century, Latin scholars sought to impose the rules of Latin on English. But before long people realized that English wasn’t a Romance (Latin-derived) language. It’s a Germanic language, and Germanic languages commonly end in prepositions. So that brief “rule” was debunked, although many people still erroneously cling to it. A lot of former “rules” of grammar are old myths invented by Latinists in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Of course there is an underlying structure to language that doesn’t change. Subjects should have a particular relationship to verbs. We have to be able to keep time elements straight, and so tenses in a series have to make sense. We must be able to differentiate singulars from plurals, and in some cases masculine from feminine (as with pronouns). So yes, English is free-flowing, but within a structure that imposes an overall logic.

Q: I just finished reading My Home Is Far Away by Dawn Powell, which was written in 1944. The phrase “spit and image” appears at least three times. Most people today would say “spitting image.” I guess they are mishearing “spit and image” as “spittin’ image.” What is the derivation of the original phrase?

A: “Spit and image” is another of those phrases that can’t be pinned down with certainty. But it’s even more complicated than you’d guess! Michael Quinion, in his website World Wide Words, discusses the various versions of the phrase (“spitting image,” “spitten image,” “spit and image,” “the very spit of,” and “dead spit for”) and several theories of their origin. Here’s an excerpt:

“The two most common suggest that our modern phrase [‘spitting image’] is, via one or other of these forms, a corruption of spit and image. This contains the even older spit, which existed by itself in phrases such as the last two above. Larry Horn, Professor of Linguistics at Yale, argues convincingly that the original form was actually spitten image, using the old dialectal past participle form of spit. He suggests that the phrase was reinterpreted when that form went out of use, first as spit ’n’ image and then as spit and image or spitting image.

“But why spit? One view is that it’s the same as our usual meaning of liquid ejected from the mouth, perhaps suggesting that one person is as like the other as though he’d been spat out by him. But some writers make a connection here with seminal ejaculation, which may account for the phrase being used originally only of the son of a father.

“Quite a different origin is suggested by other writers, who argue that spit is really an abbreviation of spirit, suggesting that someone is so similar to another as to be identical in mind as well as body. Professor Horn is sure that this supposed derivation is wrong.”

[Note: A later post on this subject was published on May 7, 2021.]

Q: When I was growing up and a person accused of a crime proclaimed his innocence or acknowledged his guilt, it was always stated that he “pled” guilty or innocent. Now I hear poeple say he “pleaded” guilty or innocent. When did the change occur? My tongue has to take the Fifth when pushed to speak that word.

A: American dictionaries generally list both “pleaded” and “pled” (in that order) as past tenses for the verb “plead.” So you can say a scofflaw “pleaded guilty” or “pled guilty” and be correct either way, though the first is the more common form.

Bryan A. Garner’s Dictionary of Modern American Usage also says that “pleaded” is the predominant form in both American and British English. But in legal terminology, “pled” is a common variant in the U.S. (not in Britain). So it’s quite common to say of an American perp that he “pled guilty” or “has pled guilty.”

Since “pled” dates from the 16th century (even though it’s now all but obsolete in England), there’s no reason you shouldn’t stick to it if that’s your preference.

Q: I have a word gripe. I’ve recently heard any number of Americans pronouncing “homage” as if they were speaking French. Not only does this sound pretentious, but, I believe, it is incorrect. Are there any occasions where the French pronunciation is preferred?

A: “Homage” has been part of the English language since before 1300, and it’s correctly pronounced (in English) as HOM-idj or OM-idj. Whether or not the “h” is pronounced, the accent is on the first syllable. The French pronunciation “oh-MAHZH” is unnecessary. There are no occasions for which the French pronunciation is preferred unless one is speaking French. It sounds affected, and there are no grounds for claiming it has precedence over the English pronunciation. After all, the ultimate source is the Latin “homo” (man), which has a pronounced “h.” And Latin got there first.

[Note: An updated post about “the whole nine yards” appeared on Dec. 14, 2016.]

Q: You said on the radio that nobody knows the origin of the expression “the whole nine yards.” I believe it comes from sailing days. When a captain wanted to push his clipper to the limit, he put on “the whole nine yards”—that is, the three yards, or spars, holding the biggest sail on each of the three masts. How does that sound?

A: Any mention of the expression “the whole nine yards” on the air always inspires several listeners to e-mail me with the “definitive” origin of the phrase—each of course different. Your explanation sounds very good, but so do many of the others that are competing for first place.

Another listener offered this explanation: “During World War II the machine gun clips had exactly nine yards of ammunition, and soldiers would say, ‘Give ’em the whole nine yards!'”

In fact, no one really knows how the phrase originated, and many linguists and others have spent way too much time trying to track it down. One of the better explanations of this whole phenomenon is on Michael Quinion’s Website, “World Wide Words.” Here’s a link to his “whole nine yards” item.

Q: Why is New York City referred to as the “Big Apple”? As a New Yorker, I feel that I should be able to explain this term to my non-New York friends.

A: The term was popularized in the 1920s by a New York turf writer named John J. Fitz Gerald after he overheard two stable hands using it at a racetrack in New Orleans. In their conversation, the stable hands referred to the New York racing scene and to New York racetracks as “the big apple.” In the 1930’s, the expression was picked up by jazz musicians, who called New York (sometimes Harlem) “the Big Apple.”

In the 1950s the phrase faded into obscurity. It was revived in the 1970s by the New York Convention and Visitors’ Bureau for use in tourism, and it has stuck firmly ever since. In 1997 Mayor Giuliani designated the southwest corner of 54th and Broadway as “Big Apple Corner,” marking the building where Fitz Gerald lived from 1934 to 1963.

Two researchers, Gerald L. Cohen and Barry Popik, are responsible for discovering Fitz Gerald’s role and for tracking down the term to those two stable hands in New Orleans.