radix
n.— «In his letters home to his younger brother, he talks about “radix,” slang for the authorities or police, and about the “bull boy” guards “giving it large,” a reference to threats and the use of violence.» —“‘Coded Letters’ Reveal Briton’s Suffering In Guantanamo” in Cairo IslamOnline.net (Doha, Qatar) Aug. 8, 2004. (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...
How do social media algorithms shape the way we communicate? A new book argues that the competition for clicks is changing the way we speak and write, from the so-called “YouTube accent” to the surprising evolution of the word preppy. Also: A...