Some of us view time as a highway down which we travel, while others see it as an endless train of events arriving at our station. If the meeting in question is in a specific car on that train, the person scheduling it might push it back to a car that will arrive later. We "spring forward", moving everything up a few cars on the train so things arrive earlier, and soon will "fall back" to cars that will arrive later.
No word on Albert Einstein's opinion on the matter — last I heard, he was trying to form a grand unified theory of highways and trains, though, personally, the idea of Union Pacific on the interstate rather terrifies me (triple-trailer semis are bad enough).
Just listened to your program for the first and think it's really great. I just wanted to mention another paraprosdokian that I have been using for years, "If I had two of those, I could throw them both away." Never knew that there was a word for it.
Also, would love to know the origin of "your neck of the woods."
I'm so glad someone asked about the concept of "pushing back" a meeting. I thought I was the only one who thinks this phrase is backwards. When I think of time, I think about a timeline. So when someone says "back," I think back in time. I've had to train myself to just ignore the phrase and make sure I have I have the correct date and time which has changed. It was helpful to hear how others can make sense of this phrase.
By the way, this show is great - It's unbelievable how good you two are with words!
Oh, my. I REALLY hope the caller doesn't read Stranger in a Strange Land to his daughter. The therapy bills alone will break them. 🙂
Kaa! My thoughts exactly. I read it decades ago when I was in college. If she is young enough to be read to, then she is too young for many events described in the book. I smell some awkward extemporaneous editing in that narration.