Greetings! In our latest show, we talk about an expression familiar to many African-Americans but little known outside that community, "I couldn't buy a louse in a wrestling jacket." Also, what does it mean if your dog is...
Word nerd Ammon Shea quit his job as a furniture mover in New York City to spend an entire year reading the entire Oxford English Dictionary. The result, in addition to eyestrain, headaches, and skeptics’ puzzlement, was Shea’s new book...
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...
earn-out n.— Note: OED has an entry for “earnout,” unhyphenated, added in September 2006, which defines the term as “a contractual provision whereby the seller of a business receives additional payments if the business...
bampot n. a crazy person; a fool or dolt. Etymological Note: Most likely a form of barmpot. According to OED, barm, “the froth that forms on top of fermenting malt liquors; the head of a beer,” is used attributively as a formative to...
ringman n. an auctioneer’s assistant. Editorial Note: OED has a sense of ringman ‘a sporting man; a bookmaker’ to which this could be related via an original shared meaning of ‘a person who occupies or attends an enclosed area.’ (source: Double...