grow-op
n.— «Law enforcement agencies seized 11 expensive homes in Andover, Pembroke, Concord, Canterbury, Hopkinton, Weare and other communities and confiscated 7,000 high-quality marijuana plants. The police called it the biggest drug bust in state history. The homes appear to be what are called grow-ops. Their basements are lit by lamps like those used to illuminate the interstate and powered with electricity stolen from utilities. If the New Hampshire operations were being run like those discovered elsewhere, organized crime finances the enterprise and farmers are paid a share of the profits.» —“Big drug busts in small towns aren’t good news” Concord Monitor (New Hampshire) Dec. 18, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
How do you transform ancient Chinese script for use in the modern age? English uses a keyboard with just 26 letters, but the first Chinese typewriter looked like a small table under a huge disk with more than 4,000 characters. A new book chronicles...
What’s up with ketchup? The shifting history and spelling of the name of this condiment. For centuries, ketchup was a fishy sauce originating in Asia—the tomatoes came only later! Plus, a new book shows what’s lost when a language dies: when there...