A caller asks about how lakes get named, and we talk about a lake with a 45-letter Indian name that may or may not translate as, “You fish on your side, I fish on my side and nobody fishes in the middle.” It’s Lake...
groundtruthing n.— Note: OED defines this as “the action or process of establishing ground truth,” and defines “ground truth” as “information obtained by direct measurement at ground level, rather than by interpretation of remotely obtained data...
jumbo n.— «The Red Lake gold mine covers 55,000 acres of western Ontario, amid mountains, creeks, and pine forests populated by wild caribou. In its main shaft, which plunges 1,023m into the earth, drilling machines called jumbos extract gold ore...
dark house n.— «Some of my earliest outdoor memories where the times I spent seated next to my maternal grandmother in a tiny ice shanty situated on Black Lake near Onaway, Michigan. The interior of the structure was just large enough to allow a...
suitcasing v.— «Hogtying—called “suitcasing” by officers on the street—is a controversial maneuver banned by a growing number of police agencies stung by the sudden death of otherwise healthy suspects.» —“Weber Deputies May Have Been Warned of...
no-shop period n.— «Avaya has agreed to be bought out by Silver Lake and TPG Capital, two private equity firms with significant technology holdings, but analysts have said Avaya likely will be saddled with more debt by the deal. “We’re now in...