quick-rinse
n.— «Just what exactly is a “quick rinse” bankruptcy? Is it really a way to wash all that debt out of GM’s hair? Just take 30 days to untangle GM’s troubles? Coulter said he’d never even heard the term quick rinse until this morning after news that the Obama administration was throwing the term around. He suggested that the administration was turning to some sort of fast-track, prepackaged reorganization that would rid GM of its debt and contractual obligations. Another bankruptcy expert told me that quick rinse could really be another term for a scrub down—no wait; the expert said “scrape off.” Essentially, GM would be able to use a deal to scrape off its debts.» —“A ‘quick-rinse’ bankruptcy?” by Susan Tompor Detroit Free Press (Michigan) Mar. 30, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Amid court-ordered busing in the 1970s, a middle-school teacher tried to distract her nervous students on the first day of class with this strange assignment: find a monarch caterpillar. The result? A memorable lesson in the miracle of metamorphosis...
A hundred years ago, suffragists lobbied to win women the right to vote. Linguistically speaking, though, suffrage isn’t about “suffering.” It’s from a Latin word that involves voting. Plus: military cadences often include...