More John Crosby (on Madison Avenue talk)

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   I'll have some 1954 "yoot" slang much later tonight.
   From RADIO AND TELEVISION by John Crosby, NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 1 March 1954, pg. 15, col. 1:

      _A Stroll on Madison Avenue_
   It's been a long time since I took you on a stroll through Madison Avenue, listening to the delightful figures of speech which flower on that thoroughfare.  On Madison Avenue, when tackling a problem, a man never says: "Well, we're getting somewhere."  That's much too easy.
   You have to trick it up a little.  Recently, an ad agency executive--so help me Hannah--ended a conference with the words: "Well, the oars are in the water and we're headed upstream."  That may easily be my favorite sentence since another genius over there let fly with: "Let's up periscope and look around."  The metaphors are all sprouting waterwings.
   On Madison Avenue, ideas are inspected, sniffed at, mulled over and tormented more than anywhere else and naturally this has brought forth language of unique beauty.  One ad man, sniffing away at a program idea, turned to his colleagues and remarked: "Let's drop this down the well and see how big a splash it makes."
   Then there was the network executive who, when confronted with an idea which demanded some cogitation, declared: "Let me take a temperature reading on this and I'll get it back to you."  And another network executive, trying not to commit himself too deeply on one of his own ideas, qualified with: "Mind you, I'm only giving a side-saddle opinion."
   One crazy mixed-up ad agency man, nosing around a projected program, murmured: "Let's guinea pig that for size."  Meaning, I guess, let's try it out on a small scale before getting stuck with it on a large one.  As I say, I guess that's what it means.  Sometimes this stuff comes in badly translated.
(Col. 2--ed.)
   Then there was the case of one ad agency man trying to talk down the ideas of another one.  Snarled the second one to the first one: "Don't low bridge me."
   And in this connection, though outside the agency field, there is an expression which I'm very fond of over at one of the news magazines called "the diagonal nod."  When the boss man over there gives an idea "the diagonal nod," it means his opinion falls exactly halfway between "It's great" and "It's lousy."  So, naturally every one over there knows exactly where he stands.