"opening the kimono" (1979?, 1984)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 15:50:48 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:

>Thursday's "Dilbert" strip has Dogbert committing "consult and blabbery":
>
>-----
>http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20050616.html
>"Incentivize the resources to grown their bandwidth to your end-state
>vision. Don't open the kimono until you ping the change agent for a
>brain dump and drill down to your core competencies."
>-----

That's "grow", not "grown".

>In Paul Freiberger's 1984 book _Fire in the Valley: The Making of The
>Personal Computer_, Steve Jobs recalls using the phrase in a 1979
>meeting:
>
>-----
>http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0071358927/?v=search-inside&keywords=kimono
>"I went down to Xerox Development Corporation," Jobs said, "which made
>all of Xerox's venture investments, and I said, 'Look. I will let you
>invest a million dollars in Apple if you will sort of open the kimono
>at Xerox PARC.'"
>-----

That's from the revised and extended second edition of the book in 2000,
so Jobs' recollection might not have been in the original 1984 edition.


--Ben Zimmer