Chrysti the Wordsmith > Radio Scripts

When the Detroit News published an article in 1997 about Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the controversial advocate of doctor-assisted suicide, part of the text read, "Dr. Kevorkain has always shown the desire to push the envelope if he doesn't get the proper media attention." Why an envelope, and why pushing it?

This phrase began appearing in the popular media in the early 1980s. "Pushing the envelope" is something done by athlete, politician, rebellious child, and "Dr. Death" to test the limits of accomplishment, safety, morality or propriety.

Author Tom Wolfe is responsible for popularizing the expression in his 1979 best-seller The Right Stuff, a story about the valor of early test pilots and the first seven American astronauts. In this context, the "envelope" refers to the mathematically-calculated parameters in which the mechanisms of an aircraft can perform safely. The term has become a metaphor for the reasonable limits of safety and the boundaries of civility and protocol.

Radio Script > Pushing the Envelope