If You Can’t Mail it In, Call an Audible

In the last week I’ve encountered the expressions “mailing it in” and “calling an audible”. Sorry, I had to look them up.

A while ago I was chatting with a colleague from South Africa and mentioned “the tip of the iceberg”. He roared with laughter and reminded me that they don’t have a lot of icebergs down there. They use the expression “the ears of the hippo”.

My father’s generation casually used the “N” word with no malice, but were horrified by the “F” word, at least when ladies were around. How times have changed.

Language will vary by region and mutate over time, and you can’t do a darned thing about it. Preventing language change is best left to King Canute.

But that’s not to say you should throw the rules to the winds. Although the rules of grammar and syntax are better considered as guidelines, smart people observe them.

One of the functions of the rules is to enhance clarity. This is because every language has a hard-wired structure and if you wish to be understood clearly, you must comply with the structure. For instance, English is a subject-verb-object kind of language, meaning that the first-mentioned thing does some action to the second-mentioned thing, as in “Mary hit the ball.” If you say “The ball Mary hit” you will put your listener off-balance until they process what you’re trying to say. Codes work because they’re codes.

Another important purpose of the rules is to establish “register”, that is, the social or professional status of your usage. The judge may understand you when you say, “I ain’t never gonna do dat” but she won’t respect you, especially if you’re a lawyer. W
hen you’re enjoying a beer with the boys, be as “country” as you want, but when you’re addressing the Court of Appeal, elevate your register.

Now, about those expressions: “Mailing it in” means that you just don’t care anymore and you’re quitting before the task is done. “Calling an audible” means announcing a last-second change of plans. Now just drop these into conversation and you’ll be über cool!