A Seattle-area veteran remembers that in Vietnam he and others like him were known as cumshaw artists. They were the guys who scared up and “permanently borrowed” whatever their unit needed— gasoline, vehicle parts, or whiskey for a...
grassoline n.— «The liquid—known as green gasoline—is the chemical equivalent of traditional gasoline, but cleaner and less expensive. According to its inventor, that means the green gas, also referred to as grassoline, has the potential...
jobber n.—Gloss: A wholesaler. «Within the next few years, the trio hopes to sign up 90 oil distributors (also known as jobbers) to form a group of as many as 2,000 C-stores east of the Mississippi selling private-branded Liberty gasoline...
tank farm n.— «Molokai has just one distribution facility—Island Petroleum. This ‘tank farm’ as it is called, serves as the only storage facility for the entire island. Three types of gasoline—premium, midgrade and regular, as well as two...
blend wall n.— «Two members of Growth Energy said shipping and cost constraints could discourage further blending of ethanol with gasoline as soon as 2009, a situation the ethanol industry calls hitting the “blend wall...
Welcome to the A Way with Words newsletter, where "language" is our middle name. "Dangerous" was taken. This weekend we told you what a "trailer queen" and a "soup spitter" are, and we took a punny quiz about...