bad bank
n.—Gloss: A government-run bank that intentionally takes on the bad debts and deals of another bank that is in financial jeopardy. «Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri, condemns the term “bad bank.” He says the term does not exactly inspire support for the program. Maybe it should be called the “Damascus Road” bank, he says, or maybe the Fed should have a linguist look into something else more appealing. Mr. Bernanke replies that it’s officially called an “aggregator bank,” not a “bad bank.” Mr. Cleaver says that term is unlikely to catch on, and that perhaps a three-year-old should come up with something that rolls a bit more trippingly off the tongue.» —“Live-Blogging the Bernanke Hearing” by Catherine Rampell New York Times: Economix Feb. 10, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Some people work hard to lose their accent in order to fit in. Others may be homesick for the voices they grew up with and try to reclaim them. How can you regain your old accent? Also, a compelling book about scientific taxonomy shows how humans...
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...