Everyone knows you're not supposed to touch the third rail, including certain podcast-hosting linguists. That's why we're going to talk about it instead.
"Rail" was borrowed from Middle French into English. It was a verb that meant "to brag," "to boast," or "to growl." By the 15th century, it meant "to complain persistently or vehemently."
You can "rail at," "rail against," or "rail about." At one point "at" was the most common preposition to follow "rail." Starting around the middle of the 20th century, "against" became more common.
You can also "rail about" or "rail that." For example, you could rail about how the store is always out of what you need. Or you could rail that the store manager is inept.
The "third rail" comes from electric railways and refers to the extra rail that conveys the current. It's also used to refer to an issue that's so charged or controversial, that no politician will dare touch it.
Curiously, the metaphorical use of "third rail" in politics isn't very old. The Oxford English Dictionary puts it back to the early 1980s, as seen in this example from a 1982 Newsweek article:
"Social Security is, in the words of one Democrat, the third rail of American politics, and the one great hazard Ronald Reagan and his Republicans had hoped to avoid touching in election year 1982."
As much as we'd love to get into a conversation about third rail issues in election year 2024, we've decided to move on to another listener question about "resign" vs. "abdicate. To hear that discussion, listen to the audio above.
