budget dust
n.— «Budget dust. A small cash amount relative to the company’s total dollar budget. Many managers are being told to spend less, but if you want to arm wrestle, try this: “Why boss, that program accounts for just budget dust; let’s keep it in.”» —“A lesson in budget dust and burn rate” by Cathy Taylor Orange County Register (California) Mar. 12, 1991. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Sara in Madison, Wisconsin, was reading an old edition of The Joy of Cooking and came across a recipe that described a cake’s ingredients as earrings for an elephant. She couldn’t discern whether the authors meant that was a good thing...
Asthenosphere, a geologist’s term for the molten layer beneath the earth’s crust, sparks a journey that stretches all the way from ancient Greece to the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Plus: What the heck is a dogberg? It’s when...