to "fashion"; "in the weeds"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I
To "fashion" means to wear something stylish. From CNN yesterday: "I love
the lightning-bolt earrings you're fashioning!"

II
This morning a defense analyst explained that Osama bin Laden had been "in
the weeds" with Al Qaeda planning, and that one of his lieutenants "did a
very in-the-weeds analysis of CNN."

'Involved in or involving the close examination of detail.'

When I first heard "in the weeds" in the early '90s, waiters and waitresses
were using it to mean "overwhelmed with work."   Pilots use it to mean "at
minimum flying altitude" (1982, but semi-literal "wheels in the weeds" in
1966; a couple of firsthand sources use the former in a Vietnam War
context.).

JL
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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