The Grammar of ’Splaining
On WHYY’s “Radio Times” this week, in discussing Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, host Marty Moss-Coane asked her guest, “So what kind of ’splainin to do does Mark Zuckerberg have?”
I’m just charmed by the construction of her sentence. It refers, of course, to one of the great Lines That Were Never Said (in the vein of “elementary, my dear Watson” and “play it again, Sam”) — Ricky Ricardo’s demand that his wife articulate and justify her situation on “I Love Lucy,” which ran from 1951-1957.