Panamax
n.—Gloss: a cargo ship built to be small enough to go through the Panama Canal. «The ships are bound for Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. (Very little Australian coal goes to China.) The bigger ones are called “Capies” to distinguish them from the smaller Panamax ships that can fit through the Panama Canal. The Capies finish loading on a rising tide so they can sail immediately; once full, they would settle on the harbour’s muddy bottom if they were loaded at low tide. The waiting vessels not only represent a hiccup in the mineral export boom, the mining companies are paying more than a million dollars a day in penalties to the ship owners.» —“Bottlenecks in Newcastle—Dad’s Army has nothing on Iemma’s Navy” by Michael Duffy Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Apr. 14, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Responding to our conversation about the word chat, meaning “the gravelly residue of mines,” Isabella from Marquette, Michigan, reports that where she lives, in the state’s Upper Peninsula, such runoff is commonly called slag. She uses some made-up...
If you work in tech support, you might use snarky slang for problems caused by computer users themselves. There’s the acronym PEBCAK, for example, which stands for Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard. And: a lush poem about the sea inspired by...