European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 28, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Upfront about stay Back memories William Safire on language Hen the recently departed general counsel of the Treasury department Jean Hanson characterized a conversation she d had with Bernard Nussbaum then the White House counsel As a stay Back from the Waco pre Brief she inadvertently opened the Gates to heavy linguistic investigation. Lexicographers tune in to congressional hearings As a great source of Washington jargon and bureaucratic euphemism. Hanson a new York lawyer not heretofore a town for a poor memory established a record in the Farra go of Forg Ettery. However lawyers Are advised by other lawyers never to say i Don t remember it sounds evasive. Five times in one Day did she invoke the More artful phrase i do not have an Independent recollection of events recounted in her own memoranda earlier this  Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree informs me this Means recollection without Aid or  the phrase not yet in Black s Law dictionary is usually followed by the testimony that some Doc Jean Hanson offers treasured verbiage. Ament seems to be Correct if not the questioner uses the verb refresh As in the 1946 new yorker car Toon supplied to me by professor Monroe Freeman of Hofstra University showing a lawyer sitting on a witness Lap and saying does this by any Chance refresh your memory or. Fill Gate what s a stay Back this is apparently a fresh political term i have been unable to find it on any of my data bases except As a name. However we have a clue in the development of the verb to drop by or pay a Brief visit to the political noun drop by As in i won t attend his embarrassing event but maybe i la do a drop by when photographers have  a similar construction goes from the verb to pull aside to the diplomatic noun a pull aside which Means a private meeting at a Public  a stay Back which i Hyphenate on the analogy of the above terms Means a meeting after a meeting As some of the participants remain behind according to a Treasury source speaking on stay background. But that s not All. Sta Backis an English express Ion for drinks after hours " reports Chris Tarrant of Britain s capital radio. Pre Bricf information disseminated before an event is the opposite of debrief which is spilled afterwards. Both Are both nouns and verbs. Both began As Pentagon Ese with pre Brief launched in 1982 extensive pre briefs and sequential reviews within the component lawyers picked it up a trial Brief gives you the ability to pre Brief the judge Mark Dombroff wrote in a 1983 Legal times. It is now White House jargon for a briefing held before a presidential trip or meeting to enable the press to understand its  the Mart controversy in this Early stage of White water is the propriety of the Treasury department s giving the White House Advance notice and where s the squad squad on Advance notice of a Crimi Nal referral from its Ward the Resolution Trust corp., to the Justice department. To those who think the notification gave the Clinton in advantage that other witnesses or suspects do not enjoy the warning was a tip off or alarm be or inside information to the president s defenders the locution for the controversial Alert was a Heads up. That term was Given exhaustive analysis in this space a year ago when the Deputy director of Central intelligence went to his Boss Robert Gates to in his words give the director a Heads up that the attorney general would be calling. Although one adjectival sense is Alert wide awake As in a player of Heads up Ball the usage most common today is the noun for  the White House Choice of Heads up was adept it carries the connotation of innocent Alert that any political outfielder would give another lest he get hit in the head by hardball tactics. The now York times setting up House for the arrival of daughter de Camp Tony Kornheiser Ater this week my 11-year-old daughter will come Home from sleep away Camp. She has been gone eight weeks and in that flame i have received a total of four Post cards from her. The Camp has a Rule re Quiring that All campers write Home every Day but apparently there s no Rule that the postcards must actually be mailed. Before she left for Camp i gave her 56 stamped self addressed postcards and told her to just put a big x on them so i d know she was alive. I can Only guess she traded them for something absolutely essential like washable tattoos. Speaking of trading i can t wait for my daughter s trunk to get Home so i can find out what she traded her new clothes for. That s a no brainer. Last year she did t come Back with any shoes. I sent her with five pairs and when i unpacked her trunk i asked what happened were you hijacked by the pay Tess Bandit she pointed out that while she no longer had any shoes she did have a swell salary under named "1 Hilary Rodham w to and a poster of Bud Bundy. That s How you know whether your kid has a future in commodities when she trades up. I can see it now. The Camp bus will pull into the parking lot and i la be there with a big Grin on my face and i la run to her. And Shell extend her hand diff Dently like she s the dutchess of Kent and i be come to plunge the toilet. We re at that stage now where my daughter thinks of me As the biggest loser in Western civilization other than possibly George Costanza. Everything i do embarrasses her whether it s my singing along to the oldies in the car Dasaad Stop you sing so bad or my Cologne Dasaad you smell like some Stinky foot or my clothes you should t Wear shorts at your age you have legs like a Chicken. Driving Home i la ask her a Bunch of questions about Camp like if she had a Good time or if she got married which i la explain i m Only asking because of the absence of mail and Shell Roll her eyes and say i m Boring her. Then she won t say anything at All to me probably until she s 16 and she wants to borrow the car. Recently i have been bracing myself for my daughter s return by trying to recreate her presence. So in the mornings i slam the bathroom door and in the afternoons i turn of every radio to and Var in the House and leave them on until the noise makes me want to ram my head through a plate Glass wind Wand in the evenings i toss her clothes All Over the floor in her room. And it is almost like she never left except for the fact that she in t Strang Ling her younger brother. Her brother is 8, and he has spent the summer at a Day Camp that specializes in getting the children filthy. Needless to say this is a big hit with boys. I thought my son would be playing baseball and soc cer. It turns out his favorite daily activity period is called group pioneering skills in which he and his pals jump fully clothed into a Muddy Creek and Wal Low around like seals. Of very morning he gets on the bus looking like an altar boy and every evening he climbs Down looking like he was in a Welsh mining explosion he s so Muddy he has been nominated for a Woodstock Fellowship. I must be the first father in history who has exceeded his Mastercard limit on liquid tide. I d like my son to go to sleep away Camp next summer but where could i Send him to have this kind of fun Calcutta i went to sleep away Camp in Pennsylvania s Poco no mountains for 15 Summers. The Camp was called Keey Umah which is an Indian word meaning child of Rich parents. I Learned Many things that Are of use to me still including the real lyrics to Louie Louie. I Learned How to give a  you place your fingers on another boy s sideburns and pull sharply upward thus ripping Many hairs from his face and causing him to shriek like Bobcat Goldthwait getting a rabies shot. I also Learned How to give a purple  you sneak up behind a naked bunk mate grab his Chest with both hands and squeeze so hard you could get juice from Newt Gingrich. And of course i Learned How to Tell ghost stories about one legged Bloodthirsty vampires who roamed the Pennsylvania Hills in search of boys whose hearts they d  with their gnarled hands and whose Heads they d rip off and leave by the Side of the Road like hubcaps t considered each Story a failure if i did t terrify at least half the bunk into remaining awake through the night whimpering like Lassie hovering at the Well where Gramps just fell in. Not that my entire Camp experience yielded lips on torture. I also Learned How to hide Beer and keep it cold in the toilet tank though As an adult 1 use a refrigerator for Beer i use the toilet tank to hide High cholesterol salad dressings i assume they still do the same silly stuff at sleep Way Camp now. I can t wait to ask my daughter. If she s not speaking to me maybe she can Send me a postcard