pixie
v.— «The final example is the use of the word “pixieing.” It is in extremely common usage among protesters. It can mean any act of cheeky defiance of authority, such as the snatching and wearing of a security guard’s hard hat, but it more properly refers to acts of eco-sabotage. Here the heavy machinery used in, say, the construction of a road, is damaged so as to prevent it being used again and to escalate the costs.…“Pixieing” is a word specific to Britain, reflecting the underlying fairy mythology in British protest culture. In contrast, eco-sabotage is called “monkey-wrenching” in America.» —“The Scouring of the Shire: Fairies, Trolls and Pixies in Eco-Protest Culture” by Andy Letcher Folklore Oct., 2001. (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...