That Skirt is Almost up to Possible

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Mickey from Iowa, and I had a question from years ago when I was a teenager. This would have been 1969 or so, and my grandmother from Colorado was visiting.

And I came down the stairs wearing a miniskirt, and her eyes got very big.

And she said, oh, my land, that skirt is almost up to possible.

And she laughed and laughed.

And I’m wondering what that means.

Impossible is used as a noun there.

I think I can infer what it means.

Yeah, I don’t know if I really want to know.

And are some girls probable or impossible?

Trust me, they are.

Some girls are very impossible.

A friend of mine theorized that years ago women would not take baths every day because you had to go to so much work heating the water and hauling it in.

So they would wash as best they could while fully clothed, and they would wash down from the neck as far as possible under their dresses and wash up underneath as far as possible.

I don’t know if that has anything to do with it or not.

Why is this ringing a vague bell?

I think that kind of misrepresents history, though.

You think?

I mean, I think the people did not bathe as frequently, but when they did bathe, they did tend to do a full body bathe.

How do you know that, Grant?

From reading diaries from the Civil War and earlier.

Oh, of course.

People talk pretty plainly about this stuff.

I mean, we think of the older generations as being more prudish, but in fact, a lot of times they were more matter of fact about the body than we are.

It was just the body.

There wasn’t anything mysterious about it.

But to go back to the possible, is it possible that calling a skirt almost up to possible meant that it was possible just to see?

It didn’t mean that the girl was possibly easy.

Oh.

Well, that’s possible.

It might be possible to see her panties or something.

Oh.

Interesting.

I haven’t heard that as a phrase before.

I haven’t heard it.

It’s rare enough that I’m looking here, I find one use of it.

Really?

It’s in an awkward place on the Internet that I don’t want to point anyone to.

My grandmother was pretty prudish.

I was going to say, not your grandmother, huh?

So did you get sent back up the stairs?

No, I didn’t, because maybe if I were her daughter, I would have been, but I wasn’t.

Of course, I thought, well, Grandma’s just in another century.

This is modern times, and this is the way everybody dresses, and she shouldn’t be commenting on what I’m wearing, but I didn’t say anything.

Of course.

So your question about this is, is it unique to your grandma?

What does it mean?

What are you looking for?

And is possible a noun, I think was part of your question.

Oh, was that your question?

That’s part of it, yeah.

Well, no, it’s still an adjective here.

It’s still an adjective.

It’s doing the job of an adjective.

I don’t think there’s a part on the body called the possible.

I hope not.

Not on my body.

I think this is such a colorful expression that I’m going to have to take this up as soon as I have a daughter.

Oh, is that right?

Okay.

Yeah.

I’ll save it.

I’ll save it for when I have a daughter.

Yeah, and you know what?

I think we’re going to start hearing it a lot more because our producer is waving at me and saying she’s going to be using it with her teenage daughter.

Oh, good, good.

Well, thank you so much for your call, Mickey.

Great.

Well, thanks a lot.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

You know, I like those vague phrases like that.

Yeah, I mean, in a way it’s so vague, but in a way it’s so specific.

Right, because you understand immediately, even though it’s vague, it’s a perfect euphemism.

Perfect euphemism.

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