FW: eighty-six or 86; short-order cookery language

[Jonathan Lighter]

I believe the idea was that at the 86th Floor Observation Deck the elevator operator would yell "86! All out!"

  "Si non 'e vero, 'e  bene trovato," as they used to say on_The Sopranos_.

  JL


Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: Re: FW: eighty-six or 86; short-order cookery language
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On 7/1/07, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> At 9:35 AM -0500 7/1/07, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
> >I'm presently away from my reference books, but IIRC there's an
> >explanation given in an American Speech article which derives this
> >86 from the number of stories in the Empire State building. I know
> >the number of stories is now considered to be 102, but somehow it
> >was once considered to be 86. (Maybe the very top of the building
> >has something to do with the discrepancy.)
>
> The open observation deck was on the 86th floor (still is, for all I
> know), so effectively that was the top for purposes of viewing the
> city at one's leisure, for looking through those binocular machines
> that one put a nickel into (or was it a dime? memory fails), and
> from which one pondered whether it was really possible to kill
> someone by dropping a penny on their head. (Young whippersnappers we
> were.) We all knew there were 102 stories, but the 86th floor was
> the relevant top for most purposes.
>
> I have no idea whether this relates at all to the restaurant code.

I concur with Barry on this point. If "86" had an ESB origin, then
surely Walter Winchell would have mentioned it in 1933.

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/86_not_from_chumleys_or_empire_state_building/


--Ben Zimmer

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