I recall a few weeks in elementary school when it was the height of hilarity to take
someone aside and say, with contrived horror, "You know your epidermis is showing!"
For any youngster unfamiliar with the word, it was a trepidant moment. They panicked in
the double embarrassment of both this personal thing that was evidently visible and the
not knowing precisely what it was. After a few weeks, of course, the fancy term for skin
had worked its way into everyone's vocabulary, and so the value of the stunt was lost.
