Socks talk
DONALD RUMSFELD'S PARTING shot -- the leaked memo betraying just one or two tiny doubts about the war -- was promptly eclipsed in the news by the Senate hearings on his successor and the Iraq Study Group's report.
But one of his phrases -- a favorite footwear metaphor -- kept echoing. Iraqis "have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility," the exiting defense secretary wrote.
And I wasn't the only one intrigued by Rumsfeld's sock fetish. Reader Tristram Lozaw e-mailed to suggest an investigation of "pull your socks up, roll your socks down, and other stocking-related references to adjusting human temperament."
So whence this "pull up their socks"? It's a plain enough bit of slang, obviously based on the literal experience of sagging anklets, that dates from the late 19th century. The Daily Mail, quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary, defined the phrase for readers in 1906: "The 'smart set' have got hold of another neat expression. 'You must pull your socks up' is the latest form of saying 'Never mind,' or 'Pull yourself together.'"
It's not clear when Americans, too, began pulling up their socks, but it's been a while. In 1980, Republican presidential contender John Anderson thought the expression was familiar enough to use on the stump in Iowa: "We've got to pull up our socks in this country," he said.
But this was hardly the first time socks had dipped their toes into slang. The phrase in one's socks, applied to a person's height, shows up in Dickens in 1835: "He...stood four feet six inches and three-quarters in his socks." Close on its heels is the American contribution "knock your socks off."
The coinages have continued in the post-pull up your socks era: The OED has put a sock in it -- meaning "shut up" -- from 1919, and sock as a (figurative) money stash from 1939 ("they dug down into the sock and paid her off"). Socked in, from the 1940s, is probably based on the airport's windsock, which was shortened to sock in the '30s.
The sock puppet, born of Shari Lewis in the '50s, made the leap to slang in the '90s; now it's not just a toy but an alternate online identity used to say things you wouldn't sign your name to.
And how about roll your socks down? It's new to me, but Lozaw sent several citations, and a Nexis search uncovered a 1991 example: An astronaut told the Chicago Tribune that the film "Blue Planet" would "roll your socks down." And
Sounds like it's just a gentler version of knock your socks off, but that's no reason to knock it. I look forward to the next round of socko slang from the hosiery department.
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10 COMPLAINTS OR FEWER: With a new movie and a TV series both called "10 Items or Less" both debuting this month, I was braced for a flurry of grumbles. A decade ago, after all, zinging supermarkets for labeling lanes "10 items or less" was a popular sport.
Most people have moved on, it seems. But one commentator did take the bait: Last Sunday NPR newscaster Nora Raum delivered a brief rant about less vs. fewer. "It's a fairly simple rule," she scolded. "If you can count it, it's fewer."
Simple, but wrong. Yes, the converse is almost always true: If you can't count it, it's less. We don't say "There's fewer snow on the ground today."
But less is more versatile; it has been applied to countables "for just about as long as there has been an English language," notes Merriam-Webster's usage dictionary. The idea that it should be banned from fewer's domain is relatively recent -- and widely ignored.
For instance, a football team gains "less than three yards" on a play, not fewer, because you aren't talking about individual yards, but a total amount. Same with "I'll be there in less than 10 minutes": It's the span of time, not the number of minutes, that matters.
And supermarket signs work the same way, as Bill Walsh, author of "The Elephants of Style," notes on his website, The Slot. "I'm not always the most charitable reader," he writes, "but I see '10 items or less' and I read '10 items or less [than that].' Problem solved."
There is a simple rule, one stated in Garner's Modern American Usage: "Fewer emphasizes number, and less emphasizes degree or quantity." There's more to the story, of course, but once you get into the details, it's anything but simple.
E-mail Jan Freeman at freeman@globe.com. For the Word blog, go to boston.com/ideas/brainiac/word.
