Nell from Virginia Beach, Virginia, remembers her great-grandfather and her grandmother using the phrase as clean as seven waters to mean “spotlessly clean.” The word waters in this case is analogous to washes or rinses, so being cleaned...
dark green adj.— «Some environmental funds, for example, only invest in clean-technology companies promoting a cleaner environment; such funds are often known as “dark green.”» —“With ethical stocks struggling, is it time...
face of freedom n.— «Freed from the (slightly tarnished) steel and glass of the financial districts of our cities, beards are on the rise. Gone are the 6am starts, the 7am transatlantic conference calls, the boozy business lunches and the...
dirty adj.— «The secret services create what’s called the “bubble,” a secure area where the candidate is. But once you’re in the bubble you can’t leave. The term for people outside it is “dirty,” meaning that you...
moondust n.— «They must choose between snatching an hour of sleep or using the precious time to clean their weapons, which often jam from the fine sand—which soldiers call “moondust”—that is swept up by incessant winds...
sandwich eater n.— «The official team wasn’t just kinda late, but also ineffective, according to those on the ground. “Those guys are called ‘the sandwich eaters’…The official clean-up guys hang out in their vans and then walk...