pimp
v.— «I can’t say how long the term “pimping” has been used in medical circles but I first heard the term six years ago when I began working at a teaching hospital. The term comes from the fact that the clinical instructors would “pimp” the medical students as a way of updating their(the clinical professor’s) basic science and epidemology knowledge base. Instead of heading to a library or surfing the net, a clinical professor such as a surgical attending would pick the brain of a third-year medical student who was fresh from the basic science classes. This is analagous to the pimp who makes a living by the prostitution labors of the men and women in his or her stable on the street.» —“Re: Etymology of the word “Pimping”” by Natalie J. Belle in Howard University College of Medicine Usenet: misc.education.medical Sept. 12, 1997. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...