An anadrome is a word that forms a whole new word when you spell it backwards. For example, the word “stressed” spelled backwards is “desserts.” Some people’s first names are anadromes. There’s the girl named Noel...
Is there something inherent in English that makes it the linguistic equivalent of the Borg, dominating and consuming other languages in its path? No, not at all. The answer lies with politics and conquest rather than language itself. Plus: a new...
nettop n.— «It all started with the advent and success of smaller laptops or netbooks, as they are called, in June 2008. Now, Indian and multinational PC makers like Asus, HCL Infosystems and Wipro are ready to give a push to the retail...
ratting n.— «It can also cause some performance slowdowns in low-security areas where players are staging large fleet battles against each other. But for people who may just be “ratting” (a term for fighting small skirmishes with computer...
plastic pony n.— «An increasing number of punters are turning to football and other sports, but the fastest growth area has been in fixed-odds virtual games, from touch-screen roulette slot machines to computer-generated horse races—known...
redshift v.— «In combination, these three sources will produce an exponential leap in demand for computing—Papadopoulos calls it the “Redshift”—that will far outstrip the increase in supply produced by Moore’s Law alone. In...