MBE generation n.— «English cricket isn’t always in tune with the times, but it seems to have caught the wave of the “me-me” generation pretty sweetly. It even has its own name for it—the MBE generation, an exclusive club whose members are pretty...
shotgun v. to try a variety of methods; to make repeated attempts; to take an indiscriminate approach; to be scattershot. Editorial Note: Besides the obvious “to kill or shoot with a shotgun,” a more common meaning of to shotgun is “to force or...
pregaming n.— «One common ritual he saw while reporting for the book was “pregaming,” where underage students sat in their dorm rooms or apartments and drank massive amounts of alcohol, usually hard liquor, in order to catch a buzz before going out...
vertical drinking n.— «Police in Preston want to call time on drinkers who stand at the bar, or as they call it “vertical drinking.” According to the Times, they believe that drinking while standing in pubs and bars is one of the country’s main...
troquero n.— «Unlike the common vision of a trucker, an old white man wearing a cowboy hat drinking a big gulp full of coffee, most truckers in LA are Latino, some are women, and most speak Spanish. They call themselves troqueros.…Troqueros, or...
dop system n.— «Experts say the culture of drinking is the legacy of exploitation by white farmers. In the past, workers were routinely given wine in lieu of pay, a practice known as the “dop system.” This was banned in the 1920s, but remained...