The term skycap for workers who help with luggage at an airport was coined by analogy with redcap, a term for porters on trains who wore red caps. Skycap was the winning entry in a contest. Another contest, held in 1923, gave us the word scofflaw, a...
A Bay Area listener says she always giggles when she sees a sign in the Oakland airport that reads, “You are leaving a sterile area.” Among security experts, the term sterile specifically means an area that is officially under control and clear of...
Words like discombobulate and blustrification are made-up words intended to sound fancy and Latinate. Discombobulate, in turn, inspired the Recombobulation Area in the Milwaukee airport. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
pseudolite n.—Gloss: A pseudo satellite. «Airports could, however, have inexpensive pseudolites that would receive GPS signals and broadcast their own, to provide both a stronger signal locally and one that is geographically more advantageous than...
If you’ve flown from Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport recently, you may have noticed an odd but official-looking sign that reads: “RECOMBOBULATION AREA.” A caller from Madison was discombobulated to see it, then started wondering about the...
FOD n.— «In aviation parlance, “FOD,” or foreign object debris, can be sucked into jet engines or slice through the thin aluminum skins of aircraft, potentially setting off catastrophic fuel-tank explosions.» —“Airports zoom in on threat of...
