ringfencing
n.— «Hoping to inoculate its unregulated businesses from the utility’s financial misery, PG&E split up its corporate family into distinct entities using a complicated technique known as “ringfencing.” The approach made it difficult to seize the assets of other PG&E subsidiaries to pay the bills of the destitute utility.» —“Federal appeals court revives $4.6 billion claim against PG&E” by Michael Liedtke in San Francisco Mercury News (San Jose, California) Jan. 10, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Some college students are using the word loyalty as a synonym for monogamy. Are the meanings of these words now shifting? Plus, a biologist discovers a new species of bat, then names it after a poet he admires. Also, warm memories of how a childhood...
Liam from San Francisco, California, is wondering about woo-woo. How did this term come to be an adjective describing beliefs or practices considered unscientific or irrational? Woo-woo likely imitates otherworldly sounds or ghostly moans. This is...