My last post used the phrase “five by five” in the title. dfc wasn’t at all familiar with the phrase, and I couldn’t put a specific derivation for where it came from, but I knew that it was analogous to “everything is okay.”
Searching around the net, it seems that “five by five” has been hijacked by Buffy the Vampire cults across the web. My favorite quote came from UrbanDictionary:
Term meaning everything is okay.The term comes from old radio slang. When communicating over radio, the operator would report the strength and clarity of the signal on a scale of 1 to 5 each. Therefore, if a radio operator described the signal as “five by five” it meant it was both loud and clear.
I don’t use the phrase “five by five” because they use it on Buffy.
I am heretofore 86’ing the usage of “five by five” in the Clarendon Haus.
Posted by dbgrandi at November 10, 2003 05:20 AM | TrackBack