LPU
n.— «It’s refreshing to read about a discovery that isn’t just a tiny increment. Today’s scientists are under pressure to publish something new, leading to what some cynically call the LPU, or Least Publishable Unit. You find some new detail and publish it, showing the boss that you’re in a science journal, even though the “discovery” is just a tweak of stuff already known. (Nothing new here. The best description of this is from Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, about a clueless young lecturer desperate for a job in 1950s England.)» —“The empathy cell” by Tom Spears Ottawa Citizen (Canada) Aug. 24, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A listener in Lorain, Ohio, wonders about the origin of the terms happy and happiness. Both come from an older word hap, meaning “chance” or “luck,” also the source of happen, mishap, hapless, happenstance, happy-go-lucky, and perhaps. Language...
When the pressure drops in an airplane cabin and all the oxygen masks fall, pilots refer to all that equipment hanging down as a rubber jungle. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Rubber Jungle Pressure Bundles” The other day I was...