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Funny you should say that...Here is a typical article that has appeared in FYSST: --------------------- BAD NEIGHBORHOODFrom Dan Russell: I was watching the History Channel last night and heard an interesting word origin: The wrong side of the tracks referred to the side of the tracks that, due to the wind, usually received most of the locomotive's black, sooty smoke. And so you've come to us for the final word on this phrase? Smart man, Dan! Well, etymologists like Christine Ammer don't think the phrase has anything to do with soot. There would have been plenty of soot from everyone's fireplaces, because most people did not have any kind of heating other than fireplaces, and for a long time that is also where cooking was done. Ms. Ammer suggests that the phrase is simply the same as "the wrong side of town" or "the wrong side of the street". Why, there's even a phrase born on the wrong side of the blanket. When railroads were built and became the primary mode of long-distance transportation, the tracks became an important fixture through town, literally dividing the town's more prosperous half from its poor half, or perhaps only figuratively doing so. However, another etymologist, Adrian Room, recently revised Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and he does believe that soot, smoke, and prevailing winds did result in poor or industrial areas being located on the downwind side of the tracks, which then gave rise to the phrase. Whatever the precise notion behind the wrong side of the tracks, it arose in the U.S., probably in the 19th century, though the OED's first record of it is from 1929. ----------------------------- Source: Take Our Word For It http://www.takeourword.com Weekly Preview Newsletter: etymology-subscribe@listbot.com (c) Copyright Take Our Word For It 1995-2001. All rights reserved.
Imagine this: You're in the elevator with the producer of your favorite show. The program you've been trying to get on for years. What would you say to this person? Would you comment on the weather? Perhaps lament about the price of gas? Or would you take the opportunity to pitch your story as you glide up three floors? Now, this might not actually ever happen but it's still a good idea to be . . .
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