At 7:15 AM -1000 10/18/06, Bruce K H Kau wrote:
I'm off to work, so I don't have time to really search this one. I recall something in a Safire book on this, but my memory gets worse with age. "Touch all the bases" used to mean something like "dot your i's and cross your t's", and that's how I originally heard the expression. Over the years, it became "touch base", which I can't really make sense of, even in the idea you note below. My really quick google seems to suggest that the baseball origin is probably correct, but not definitive.
Everybody seems to assume that the two sayings mean the same thing. They don't. Just think about it. To "touch base" means to communicate or to remain in communication. To "touch all the bases" is clearly an analogy to baseball rules meaning to "cover all the bases" (Ha! Another version!!) or, in general, to to everything required. One would not substitute one for the other, so they are not the same meaning.
And no, I haven't consulted the OED or any other authoritative source. That's just what they mean to me.
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
