flusher n.— «The Obama campaign’s New Media experts created a computer program that would allow a “flusher”—the term for a volunteer who rounds up nonvoters on Election Day—to know exactly who had, and had not, voted in real...
Feel like having a little “hair of the dog”? Grant and Martha explain what dog hair has to do with hangover cures. And what do you call it when random objects form a recognizable image, like a cloud resembling a bunny, or the image of Elvis in...
We hear the word maverick a lot lately, but where did this term for a stubborn nonconformist come from? Martha tells the story of the Texas politician who inspired the word, and whose grandson apparently coined another familiar English word...
black gun n.— «Ralph Langevin, the gun backer of Story’s Sports Shop in Laconia, said as the election gets closer and closer he has seen a real hike in sales of assault-style weapons—or “black guns” as they are called in the...
million-dollar block n.— «He said in the United States they’ve coined a phrase “million-dollar blocks,” clusters of apartments or houses where a million dollars each year is spent sending some people who live there to prison...
street money n.— «Street money is the name for cash given to party committeemen and women who hand out literature and drum up the vote on primary and election days. It comes from the candidates and is dispensed to the party’s 69 ward...