When I was a freshman at Georgia Tech, I was once so angry that I kicked a water fountain in my dorm, causing the fountain to burst open and water to spray out onto the hall carpet. As soon as this happened, I said to my friend, “Uhh, time to make ourselves scarce,” and we hurried away.

The point of this story lies in the phrase “to make one’s self scarce.” It is a pretty easy phrase to understand; it means, quite simply, to run away. However, some phrases are not so easy to understand, and, as a result, these phrases are frequently misused by ignorant people. So in this column I’d like to discuss a few common phrases whose meanings are subtle and often misunderstood.

A fine line

People throw this phrase around all the time. They’ll say, “There’s a fine line between a good team and a great team,” or “There’s a fine line between friendship and love,” or “there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance.”

In each case, however, there is a THICK line, not a fine line. There is a fine line only when it is easy to tell the difference between the two sides. The line is thin, so it is hard to be on it. For example, there is a fine line between having sex with a beautiful woman, and having your eye poked out with a ruler. It’s easy to tell which side you’re on.

On the other hand, there is a thick line between friendship and love. It is quite easy, when hanging out with a member of the opposite sex, to be perpetually on this thick line. A relationship may be more than a friendship, yet not quite a romance. It is the very thickness of this line which makes opposite-sex friendships awkward at times.

It is a bad idea to hang around on this thick line for too long; if you do, you may exhaust the woman’s patience, and you will fall back on the “friend” side. But the point is that the line between friendship and romance is thick, not fine, and we should recognize this in our dealings with the opposite sex, and not deceive ourselves into thinking that some relationship is “just friendship.”

Average

Our school works on a five-letter grading scale. In theory, A means “excellent,” B means “above average,” C is “average,” D is “below average” and F is “failing.”

However, these labels are inaccurate. As everyone knows, a “C” is not an “average” grade; it is a pretty darned bad grade. Moreover, a “B” is not an above-average grade at all; B is merely average. In my opinion the grading scale should be relabeled so that A means “good,” B means “average,” C means “bad,” D means “terrible,” and F means “God-bleeping-awful.”

As soon as possible

People frequently use this phrase when they’ve got some job to do. For example, my calculus class took a test recently, and because I couldn’t be bothered with grading the tests over the weekend, I didn’t have them on Monday morning. However, I assured the class I would have them done “as soon as possible.”

This, however, was a lie. “As soon as possible” implied that I’d make it a priority to grade these tests; when, in reality, there were a great many things that were more important to me, such as writing this column.

We should only say “I’ll get it done as soon as possible” when we really mean it. Otherwise, we ought to say “When I get around to it,” which is not very encouraging or informative, but accurate, at least.

Later on in the week

This has phrase has two different meanings. Sometimes it means just what it says, later on in the week. But on other occasions, it means something entirely different: it means “never.”

Suppose Johnny Mackowitz has gotten some attractive young woman’s phone number, so Johnny gives her a call and asks if she’d like to hang out. She might say, “Umm, I’m really busy today, Johnny, but you might try me later on in the week.” Very often, what she means by this is “You might try me NEVER.”

The phrase is used with the best intentions: its purpose is to spare the other person’s feelings. But we should keep in mind that sometimes “Yes” means “No,” and when we perceive that the “Yes” we received was really a “No,” we should back courteously away and leave the person in peace, lest we should encounter a real “No,” which is far more unpleasant.

E-mail Jeff at [email protected].