Grant Barrett said:
Digital timepieces may be changing the way we talk, at least a little. There's Bob o'clock (8:08), Big o'clock (8:19), and even Pi o'clock.
A couple of years ago, I was trying to get to sleep in a room where the only source of light was the glowing LEDs on the face of my digital alarm clock. Opened my eyes at one point and noticed that the room had grown considerably darker since I had closed them, and turning around to check the time discovered it was 1:11 am. Aha, I thought to myself, that's the darkest this room ever gets.
I then lay awake for the better part of an hour working out when the same clock would be at its brightest.
From the ipod touch manual... "Pinch your fingers together or apart." Apparently, in the view of Apple, the motion is a pinch and the direction is needing to be specified. I suppose this is like walking is assumed to be forward, but a person can walk backward.
I think we need a new word. How about 'Chnip'?
Microsoft Word uses "indent" for moving the left margin in by some distance, and the reverse (moving the margin out) is called "undent".
The analogy is clear; if "pinch" means to move the fingertips closer together, the act of moving them apart must be "punch".
In the same episode, there was a discussion of "turf" as in "turfing a patient to another physician." I'm not sure I buy the "turf out" explanation given by the hosts given the context. In the same medical context, there is often a discussion of "turf" with the sense of "territory." Radiologists, for example, claim medical imaging as their "turf." And there are often long battles over who owns the domain as new specialties take on the tools of their trade. Who owns a the patient's cholesterol level, is that the Primary Care Doc's or the Cardiologist's turf?
Given that common usage, I wonder if the idea of "turfing a patient" is more about moving a patient to another doctor's territory, more than it is a link to the ancient ideas of landing or kicking out.
We use Stretch as the opposite of Pinch in that context.
We also use Outdent, rejecting the documented Undent. -- undent would be the action of reversing a previous x-dent action, returning the text to its default margin.