Expressions with Number Variation

[George Thompson]

"I have a recollection of the top-money question on Pyramid (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_(game_show)) as yielding something
like, "That's the $10,000 question," but I think that's completely given
way to "million-dollar question.""

There was a radio show in the 40s that built to a climax of "the $64
question".  (I've forgotten the name of the show.)  This lead to the common
expression "That's the $64 question" -- "That's the big problem, the real
issue".  In the 50s the format of this show was adapted to television but
adjusted for inflation, giving us the $64,000 question.

I posted musings here a number of years ago on the expression "that and a
nickel will get you. . . .", under the heading "The Toll of Inflation".

GAT

On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 8:20 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>wrote:

> I have a recollection of the top-money question on Pyramid (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_(game_show)) as yielding something
> like, "That's the $10,000 question," but I think that's completely given
> way to "million-dollar question."
>
> I was going to claim that inflation has stopped there, but Googling
> reveals that I'm out of touch as "billion-dollar question" gets 1.1 million
> raw Googits.
>
> However, just looking at the top few hits, it seems that billion-dollar
> question (and trillion-) refer to issues where a X billion (or trillion)
> dollars are at stake. Googling further, I find a minor number of hits all
> the way through decillion, with "nonillion" missing. There seems to be a
> block that prevents people from using that number, perhaps because we have
> octopuses and decathlons but not nonopuses or nonathlons.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Seattle, WA
>
> On Sep 13, 2012, at 4:59 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>
> > Well, back in the old days, you could be behind someone 100 per cent, or
> you could give 100 per cent, and that was it.  Now, it seems wishy-washy
> unless you give 110 per cent or you're behind them 1000 per cent.
>  Inflation again.  I'm not sure it ever goes in the other direction.
> >
> > LH
> >
> >
> > On Sep 13, 2012, at 6:40 PM, Dave Wilton wrote:
> >
> >> There's "Eskimos have ## words for snow." Lots of variability in that
> one.
> >>
> >> There's also "seventh heaven" and "third heaven," although these derive
> from
> >> different theological concepts rather than linguistic variability, the
> seven
> >> from Judaism and Islam, and the three from Paul's vision of three
> heavens.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of
> >> Shapiro, Fred
> >> Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 5:00 PM
> >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >> Subject: Expressions with Number Variation
> >>
> >> In connection with the discovery that the original formulation of "the
> whole
> >> nine yards" may well have been "the whole six yards," Dave Wilton has
> >> pointed out that "there are many examples of phrases with numbers that
> went
> >> through multiple versions with different numerical values before
> settling on
> >> the one that became canonical (e.g., 'cloud nine')."  Can Dave or anyone
> >> else give me other examples of this kind of number variation?
> >>
> >> Fred Shapiro
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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