Fess up: do you have a pet name for your car? How about your computer? Martha and Grant discuss the urge to give nicknames to inanimate objects in our lives. Also, why do we speak of vetting a political candidate? And what in the world is a zoo...
midnight drop n.— «According to the Dow Jones report, the US Treasury is trying to push the regulations through after months of difficult drafting in the hope of finalising the issue before the Bush administration leaves office at the end...
black swan event n.— «On Black Monday, October 19, 1987, the Dow Jones index, for reasons still being debated, fell 508 points, almost a quarter of its total. (The current equivalent, for comparison’s sake, would be a 3,200-point loss on...
green badger n.— «As the Los Angeles Times first reported last October, more than half the workforce in two key CIA stations in the fight against terrorism—Baghdad and Islamabad, Pakistan—is made up of industrial contractors, or...
blue badger n.— «As the Los Angeles Times first reported last October, more than half the workforce in two key CIA stations in the fight against terrorism—Baghdad and Islamabad, Pakistan—is made up of industrial contractors, or...
B-train n.— «According to the police summary of facts, at 6.57pm on October 8 Harrison was driving a fully laden truck and two articulated trailers—commonly known as a B-train—and was travelling west on SH29, Tauriko, towards the Kaimai...