breakage
n.— «Most consumers will not miss the advantages that rebates promised. That is because only the most diligent and fastidious consumers took advantage of rebates. Retailers and manufacturers intentionally made the process of rebate redemption difficult. They even have a term for it: breakage.» —“Rebates on the Way to Expiring” by Damon Darlin New York Times Nov. 11, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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...
A librarian opens a book and finds a mysterious invitation scribbled on the back of a business card. Another discovers a child’s letter to the Tooth Fairy, tucked into a book decades ago. What stories are left untold by these forgotten...