piggybacking n.— «Sometimes schools will have a student start the lesson by driving another student home, a practice known as “piggybacking.” If there is another student in the car, ask where your teen will be driving and...
two-centimetre n.— «“You don’t come here in a two-centimetre (slang for a micro-mini).”…It was here on Sunday that taxi drivers and hawkers joined forces to teach one young woman “a lesson.” Nwabisa Ngcukana, 25...
punch mine n.— «The museum is a history lesson of Wheatcroft’s rich coal-mining past.…Clark shows a picture of a stooped miner entering a punch mine.» —“Mining a father’s passion” by Garret Mathews in...
If you’re still wondering about how far back in time you could go and still understand the English spoken then, check out written and audio excerpts from the poem Beowulf. Also, this NPR report in which host Robert Siegel gets a lesson in...
box with docks n.— «For years, industry slang for a convention center was “a box with docks.” It was blunt but apt shorthand. In recent years, though, convention center managers have been learning the lesson that hotel companies have...
summer slide n.— «Yes, many children fall almost three months behind in math and reading skills over the summer. This phenomenon is so well known that educators even have a special name for it. They call it the “the summer slide.”...