We only drop dimes metaphorically now

As the nation’s cosplay patriots are being informed upon willy-nilly across the country (and let’s hear it for the ex-wives), a lovely and anachronistic expression has emerged. In a gangster movie, when you would turn someone in, you might be said to be “dropping a dime” on them. This refers to putting a ten-cent piece into a payphone. The expression experienced its first dissonance when payphone calls went up to 25 cents in the early 1980s. “I’m dropping a quarter on Muggsy Malone,” doesn’t have quite the same zip to it as “dropping a dime.” Now that payphones are a relic and everyone turns each other in free of charge, the phrase has no modern relevance at all. Its use is becoming less and less common, but given the ten-cent payphone’s decades-old disappearance, that it persists at all is testament to its charm. It is one of those rare expressions that has (somewhat) survived the now forty-year gap since its direct relevance.

 

 

It would be a capital idea to capitalize on the common misuse of "capitol"

Events of this week have revealed a horrible patch of ignorance in the United States, one that is usually undone in grammar school. This classic homonymic error happens a dozen times before breakfast in your social media feed, and you don’t want to be the one with egg on their face. I speak of course of “capital" versus "capitol.” Capital means several things: it can refer to accumulated wealth (business equipment purchases require a capital investment), an uppercase letter (a capital “Q” delineates terminal gullibility), or a city that serves as the seat of a country’s or state’s government (the capital of Vermont is Montpelier). Capitol means only one thing: a building in which an entity’s legislature resides. Capitol is reserved only for the building, not the city where the building resides. The capitol is always located in the capital city. The capitalization of “capitol” is another matter! When you reference a capitol building specifically, like when you say, “I am going to storm the United States Capitol,” you do capitalize “capitol.” When you say, “My fellow whackadoodles are going to storm every capitol building in the country,” you do not capitalize “capitol,” as it doesn’t refer to a particular one.  

North, South, East and West qualifiers

 I’m from New England and I live in California. When I refer to my native home, I say “back east,” and when I’m home and referring to my adopted city of Los Angeles, I say, “out west.” You would never say “back west” or “out east.” How did these conventions begin? 

“Back east” and “out west” emerged at approximately the same time, and as you might guess, it was during the western expansion of the United States. The east was the settled area, the known quantity. If you were going west, you were going out west, into the unknown, and if you were coming back, you were headed back east, returning to the familiar. In most sentences, these expressions will serve as adverbs, as they typically modify the verb. In the sentence, "I am going back east," the word "back" offers more details on the verb, "going." If you answer the question, "Where in the heck is he?" by simply saying, "Back East," the word "back" behaves as a preposition.

 

So what of the other chief compass points? It’s “up north” or “down south,” obviously because of a map’s orientation. The word “up” probably ought to refer to a direction away from the center of the Earth, while the word “down” ought to indicate a direction towards it. Our frame of reference for North and South is a physical positioning of up and down, whereas at least as far as adverbial expressions go, the East and West seem more to be derived from a frame of mind.