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Do you stand in or on line? Here's an odd little piece from The Atlantic that doesn't dig deeply enough for me, but isn't worthy of being ignored entirely, either.

At the grocery store, i am in line. With the phone and the computer I am on line. At other times I line up or line things up or even line out a course of action. On weekends I obsess over offensive and defensive lines.

Do you ever queue up?

I think the only time I use queue, other than when doing crossword puzzles, is when I have a document waiting to be printed on a public printer. Then it is in the queue.

I chalk my queue when playing billiards.
And my Chinee friend from last century has pigtail queue.

I chalk my queue when playing billiards

Do you really use queue for cue, or are you making a funny?

Perry doesn't often use emoticons. I suspect a little tongue in cheek here.

"The man standing in the queue was a cue ball except for the queue hanging down his back. He was in the queue to buy a cue and a cue ball. He was given a cue to move to another queue that was shorter than the queue he was in. All the while, text messages were being queued up in his smart phone."

Obviously, the funny wasn't.

Obviously, the funny wasn't.

More likely it was just me being dense.

In the fifties or sixties I ran across a great column in Esquire, I think it was. Not about in or on, it was about in or out. The writer gave us a whole page of whatever was then current somewhat like this:
Texting is in. Email is out.
Firetruck red is in. Pastels are out.
The Keystone just went out.
Twitter is in. Linked-in is out.
Texting just went out.
Cricket is in. Rugby is out.
Twitter just came back in.

Of course the examples are all 21st century. Anyone else remember that page?

As you say yourself, no one possibly can. It is not in any way shape or form a possible piece from 50-60 years ago. No way, no how.

Google "what is in and what is out" to get a plethora of ins and outs. None are as old as Perry remembers. Some are serious. Some show definite bias. Most of them are of no moment.

Here is a small list of outs and ins with my precisely correct judgments appended:

* Galluses (not the rooster kind, the braces and suspenders kind) are out while belts are in. (Okay.)
* Carbon paper is out while scanners and printers are in. (Great!)
* Hymns are out while 7/11 choruses are in. (Baaaad...)
* Brilliantine is out while natural hair is in. (What do I do with my cowlick?)
* Landlines are out while cell phones are in. (Since I am almost always in, in the literal sense, I don't need a cell phone.)
* Free Internet sites are out while pay sites are in. (I don't much like Facebook anyway.)
* Cuff-less trousers are out while cuffed trousers are back in. (I can't afford a new wardrobe.)

Okay, but how about where one lives or something is located? Is the hospital on North Street, or in it? Do I live on or in Park Place?