Should the Great Recession be talked and written about as a proper noun? Recessions tend to be vague in their scale and timelines, so it’s problematic to mention them as proper nouns. Perhaps the similarities in sound between Great Recession...
scalejacking n.— «Dave Balter coined this great term. It describes the quest of marketers for size at all costs. Because marketers were raised on the scale of mass—TV, radio, newspapers—they have a churn and burn mentality. The internet...
rivet counter n.— «North End Train Center has some intense customers who Colley likes to call “rivet counters.” These are collectors who won’t buy an item unless it is absolutely correct and to perfect scale.» —“Small...
carborexic n.— «To others they come across as “energy anorexics,” obsessing over personal carbon emissions to an unhealthy degree, the way crash dieters watch the bathroom scale.…Jay Matsueda, who might also answer to...
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...
upslop n.— «Unlike the supercells of the central plains, which are elements in large systems, the upslope supercells near the mountains (in this case, the Rockies) exhibit what appears to be random behavior. Justin: “Some people...