Slocum
n.— «Sea gliders were conceived in the 1980s by Douglas Webb, a former researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Only in recent years, though, have they become fully operational and more capable. Some are called “Slocums,” after Joshua Slocum, who in 1898 was the first person to sail single-handedly around the world.…It is a Slocum that has been modified to harvest the energy that it needs to operate its buoyancy-propulsion system from the sea itself. In theory, this sea glider could travel for thousands of kilometres on voyages that could last for years.» —“Run silent, run green” Economist (United Kingdom) Feb. 28, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The new Downton Abbey movie is a luscious treat for fans of the public-television period piece, but how accurate is the script when it comes to the vocabulary of the early 20th century? It may be jarring to hear the word swag, but it was already at...
Silence comes in many forms. Writer Paul Goodman says there is, for example, the noisy silence of “resentment and self-recrimination,” and the helpful, participatory silence of actively listening to someone speak. • The strange story...