You might be surprised to learn that a “hoosier” isn’t necessarily from Indiana. Around the St. Louis, Missouri, area, the term hoosier has a whole other meaning. And: Scotland is the home of the Golden Spurtle world championship, but what exactly...
Jodie in Norfolk, Virginia, reports that a new restaurant there serving New Haven-style pizza is called District Apizza, pronounced “ah-BEETS.” The word apizza is a remnant of the language of Italian immigrants who settled in Connecticut, from la...
To be at the coalface means to be on the front lines–working at a practical level, rather than a theoretical one. The phrase is primarily British, and derives from the image of coal miners having direct contact with exposed ore. This is part of a...
Why do we say something is jet black? Does it have to do with the color of a 747’s exhaust? Or skid marks on the runway? Or something else entirely? We provide a color with a mineralogical answer. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
valley fill n.— «Mountaintop removal is just what the name suggests. Peaks are cleared of trees. Giant steam shovels then scrape away the topsoil. The rock beneath is blasted away until the coal is exposed. Some blasts have lopped as much as 800...
Nazi fuel n.— «This expensive coal-to-liquid process was later used by South Africa to meet its energy needs during its isolation under apartheid. And now what some people refer to as “Nazi fuel” is back—thanks in part to high oil prices and...