flight n.— «Five weeks before the film opens, you start saturating with a “flight” of thirty-second TV spots; and, at the end, you remind with fifteen-second spots, newspaper ads, and billboards.» —“The Cobra” by Tad...
This past weekend on "A Way with Words," we mulled over whether part of the recession-busting bailouts the government is proposing should be targeted at reviving the Federal Writers' Project of the 1930s. Get a taste of that, and...
Martha talks about the hoopoe, that colorful, clownish, extremely smelly bird—with a likely linguistic connection to defrauded hedge fund investors.
packing for Perth n.— «The onslaught of unsettling news has proved too much for some with the means to flee. No reliable numbers are kept on emigration, but “packing for Perth”—a phrase used to describe white flight, not necessarily to...
Southwest effect n.— Note: Named for Southwest Airlines. «What isn’t known is how much demand for travel will disappear this fall if fares are higher and the economy weakens further. When discounters enter markets and force all airlines...
gangloading n.— «Yesterday I joined 14 students in the altitude training chamber at the Eighty-ninth Physiological Training Flight at Andrews Air Force Base in Camp Springs, Maryland. Wearing helmets and oxygen masks that covered...