cargo cult economics
n.— «With a new year ahead, what do we see as our future? How much of our growth and progress is real, and how much is what I call “Cargo Cult Economics,” where we end up holding sacks of straw? At the end of World War II, villagers from the Pacific islands and New Guinea had been used to seeing an endless flow of aeroplanes flying in with huge quantities of goods and material for the armies fighting Japan. Then suddenly it all stopped. A number of movements started which attempted to stimulate this flow again. Villagers built mock airports with control towers made of timber and straw; they built dummy aeroplanes and radios and the modern paraphernalia associated with an advanced economy. What they did not understand is that these things do not appear by magic.» —“Fortune doesn’t fall from the sky” by Ray Beatty Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia) Jan. 4, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Amy from Charlotte, North Carolina, reports a dispute arose when visiting her brother’s family. Is a large container for storing sugar properly called a can or a canister? The answer involves prototype theory, which in cognitive linguistics and...
The exclamation shiver me timbers! has nothing to do with being cold. A different verb shiver means “to shatter into small pieces,” and timbers refers to the wooden beams that make up the structure of a ship’s hull and ribs. Sailors once used...