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...
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...
At Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport, a post-security sign reading “RECOMBOBULATION AREA” plays on discombobulate, meaning to confuse or throw into disorder. Rissa from Madison wondered where discombobulate came from after seeing it while...
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...
