The 405 Aired Oct 8th, 2026

Okay, okay.

Every story has a beginning.

Now, that may seem like a fairly obvious statement, but apparently the English language has decided that saying something simply began isn't nearly enough.

We can say it happened from day one, or from the get-go, or from the word go.

We can say it happened right out of the gate, from the outset, from square one, from the ground up, or at the very start.

We can tell you it happened at the dawn of something, in the early days, at the inception, or when the whole thing got started.

We can even say it happened when the wheels first started turning.

And after all those carefully selected expressions, what have we actually told you? Absolutely nothing.

We have established one very important fact.

It began.

That's it.

We haven't told you whether it was successful.

We haven't told you whether it was a good idea.

We haven't told you whether anyone knew what they were doing.

We haven't even told you whether the wheels that started turning eventually fell off.

We simply march proudly to the starting line and announce that somebody, somewhere, at some point, started something.

And we English speakers aren't finished yet.

We can tell you it began right out of the gate.

Well, naturally, you wouldn't expect something to begin three-quarters of the way through the gate.

I love the English language.

It has me fascinated.

We can say it began at square one.

Hmm.

That's useful information, assuming you're planning to visit square two, three, and four.

Or we can say it began from the ground up, which is really reassuring because beginning from the roof down would be a rather difficult task.