Is Murphy’s Law, or the idea that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” a slur against the Irish? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Is “Murphy’s Law” A Slur Against the Irish?” Hi, you have A Way with Words. Hi there. This is...
Why do we refer to “testing or going beyond limits” as pushing the envelope? In aeronautics, to push the envelope means to try to go past the edge of the aircraft’s perceived capability. In the 1980s, the phrase was popularized by Tom Wolfe’s book...
In the movie Avatar, the characters battle over a rare and valuable mineral called unobtanium. A mechanical engineer says he had a hard time getting into the movie because in his world, the word unobtanium means something different. This is part of...
Grant shares listener email about the origin and meaning of the term g-job. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “G-Job” Martha, do you remember a couple of shows ago we had a call about the origin of the term G-job? Sure, that was...
unk-unk n. especially in engineering, something, such as a problem, that has not been and could not have been imagined or anticipated; an unknown unknown. Editorial Note: The Barnhart Dictionary of New English Since 1963 (Barnhart/Harper & Row, New...
paper airplane n. in aeronautics and aerospace, a flying machine that is strictly theoretical. Editorial Note: The adjectival form paper, referring to something that exists only in print or writing but not as a physical object, is fairly common...
