Happy holidays to everyone! Your gift is another episode of A Way with Words. It's one-size-fits-all. This week we chewed over whether "cotton-picking" is racist, unintentionally funny headlines, a holiday-song quiz from John Chaneski...
welcome improver n.— «The lawsuit charges that through three reassessments, the former town assessor, Kathlyn Stanley, illegally raised her taxes to a level far above that of similar properties. It also charges that the town retaliated against her...
patch-n-match
n.— «The carpet in the hallway on the penthouse level was cut and cobbled together—a practice known as “patch-n-match.”» —“Eloise Sheds a Tear” by Evgenia Peretz Vanity Fair January, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
jallad n.— «Ever wondered where does the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) disposes off animal carcasses? Well, it could be just anywhere—along a deserted road, a culvert…or even on a lane along the backyard of your house. A peculiar situation...
fertigation n.— «Professor Michael Delwiche, chairman of biological and cultural engineering at UC Davis, has experimented with wireless sensing systems that precisely apply water—sometimes mixed with chemical fertilizers in a process called...
kill screen n.— «We talk about what is known in classic-gaming argot as the “kill screen.” This is the edge of the universe, the place where instructions end. Billy has seen a lot of kill screens. Pac-Man comes to a halt at level 256, as the...