I will be on vacation this week -- a diversion that causes my grandchildren to fall on the floor laughing. They believe I am on permanent vacation in Florida. Inasmuch as I write this column in advance of my usual deadline for current events, which might change direction suddenly, I respond instead to questions from readers about recent quotations. Friend C.J., asks me to explain the phrase "all of a sudden" used in a news story. He says he doesn't know what is "part of a sudden."

My dog-eared Dictionary of Americanisms, published by the University of Chicago, devotes a page to the colloquial use of "all" as a modifier making other words emphatic.

Examples are "I'm all in," "He's all right," "All together now," and "Kids play all day." The latter is often made doubly emphatic, as in "all day long."

Davy Crockett is quoted as declaring in 1840: "I was rigged all-a-tanto" -- the latter word being a bugle call for swift pace.

There are several degrees of suddenly: abruptly, instantly, twinkling, immediately, presto, and the ever-popular "all at once."

Thus we find that "all" is the lazy communicators' refuge from an inadequate vocabulary -- a defect that does not afflict C.J. and therefore is a puzzle to him.

* * * George, my E-mail respondent, wants an explanation of "panty waists." Following is my http://www.sunline.com reply: Obviously you are a lexicographer (Gr. lexikographos). I am pleased that you appreciate colorful language. After 60 years as a word smith, I am bored by pusillanimous phrases. The word "panty-waist" is a common colloquialism -- or was until johnny-come-lately talking heads glommed onto TV and stifled us with clichés. Internet may be the last bastion of intellectuals.

"Pantie" has been a pejorative at least since 1845 when the Knickerbocker Papers opined: "If your panties weren't sheeted home at the bottom, you'd out-jump a monkey."

"Panty-waist" is a lower undergarment only. Men and boys in my youth relied on BVDs covering the torso, upper arms, and upper thighs. A "trap door" -- not sheeted at the bottom -- accommodated natural contingencies.

Roget's Thesaurus lists panty-waist as one of the synonyms for "weakling: softy, jelly fish, big baby, chicken, milk-toast, sop, namby-pamby, mollycoddle, cream puff, push-over, light-weight, doormat, droop, effeminate, and sissy." In my opinion, each of these, singly and collectively, described liberal Congresses and the United Nations during the 1980s. I hope you agree -- if not, then that you've been titillated by my glottologic gambit.

* * * Friend A.B. chides me for not mentioning President John F. Kennedy's inaugural challenge: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Kennedy's speech writer, Historian John Kenneth Galbraith, stole the line from President Warren Harding. In a speech to the Republican national convention June 7, 1916, Harding declared: "We must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it, and more anxious about what it can do for the nation."

Harding stole the line from Le Baron Russell Briggs, who wrote in the 1914 magazine College Life: "The youth who loves his Alma Mater will always ask, not 'What can she do for me?' but 'What can I do for her?'"

Briggs stole the line from a speech by Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., before a Grand Army of the Republic convention May 30, 1884: "We pause to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return."

Galbraith once said, "Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory."

* * * Avid sports fan S.C. challenges Coach Red Sanders as my source for the statement: "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." S.C. says it was Vince Lombardi.

According to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Sanders said it in 1953 as I quoted. Lombardi said it differently in a 1962 interview: "Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is."

* * * While I'm on sport quotes, I might as well set the record straight about Yogi Berra's comment on the 1973 National League pennant race: "It ain't over 'til its over."

This is a variant of an old southern adage: "Church ain't out 'til the fat lady sings." TV newscaster Daniel Cook in 1978 rendered it as: "The opera ain't over 'til the fat lady sings."

* * * Sir Winston Churchill did not say in 1940 "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears." The correct quote is: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." This is a variation of a similar sentence he wrote in 1931 about the armies of the Russian czar: "Their sweat, their tears, their blood bedewed the endless plain."

The phrasing was well known from earlier sources.

The English poet John Donne wrote in 1611: "Mollify it with thy tears, or sweat, or blood."

George Byron, another English poet, wrote in 1823: "Year after year, they voted cent for cent -- blood, sweat and tear-wrung millions."

July 21, 1996

PARTING SHOTS

The Democratic National Committee has proposed a great way to raise campaign money. For $130,000 (no kidding) you can sleep at the White House in the Lincoln bed.

With whom?

* * * Never sleep with anybody crazier than yourself. * * * Victor Borge says Santa Claus has the right idea -- visit people once a year.