When a youngster misreads cooking instructions, the slash mark in the notation for the fraction 1/4 turns out to be a recipe for confusion. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Forward Slash Mishmash” We’ve talked many times about how...
Evan from Dallas, Texas, asks whether decimate should only mean destroying one-tenth of something or whether it can mean generally destroying it. The word goes back to a Roman military punishment in which one in ten mutinous soldiers was killed, but...
mini-Madoff n.— «Their names lack the Dickensian flair of Bernie Madoff, and the money they apparently stole from investors was a small fraction of the $50 billion that Mr. Madoff allegedly lost of his clients’ savings. But the number of other...
off-air reporter n.— «Mr. Conroy, whose job title is “off-air reporter,” (because he does not normally appear on television) is one of many young journalists hired by the networks to follow the candidates across the country, filing video and blog...
PILOT n.— «The companies—including behemoths like JPMorgan Chase, Pfizer and NBC—have paid a fraction of their normal property tax bill for years through these little-known deals, commonly called PILOTs (Payments in Lieu of Taxes).» —“Deals that...
wikigroaning n.— «First, find a useful Wikipedia article that normal people might read. For example, the article called “Knight.” Then, find a somehow similar article that is longer, but at the same time, useless to a very large fraction of the...
