to, “the medium is the message” would be right 
away rush off and find out what medium means. It 
doesn’t mean what you think, and right there’s a 
lot of the trouble. My father was usually quite 
exact when he made statements like that. He may 
have had tongue in cheek and a twinkle in his eye 
but he was being quite exact.

If you say, “the medium is the message” you’re 
talking about a medium meaning a milieu. Oh, wait 
a minute—right away it changes! Medium in the 
sense of growing medium. What do plants grow in? 
That’s a medium. It’s a particular mixture of dirt 
and vermiculite, and it’s a whole circumstance