When Audrey was growing up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1990s, it seemed that everyone around her used the word jawn as an all-purpose substitute for other words, as in I took my jawn to the jawn and we had a bunch of jawns...
Jawn is a term common in Philadelphia and parts of New Jersey that refers to a thing, team, show, group, or pretty much any item. It’s a variant of joint, as in, a Spike Lee joint. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Jawn” Hello, you...
spike the lens v. phr.— «In the final moments of the Munchkin Land scene, in which Glinda the good witch (played by Billie Burke) instructs Dorothy to follow the yellow brick road, it’s easy to spot young Priscilla, near Burke, as the youngster...
wirehouse n.— «Recruiters said although there has been a spike this year in disenfranchised advisers going independent, the vast majority of those on the move simply go to another “wirehouse”—a term used to describe large, full-service brokerages...
thrashing n.— Note: Perhaps related to the British noun “thrash,” which means “a party.” «Evidence gathered from the social networking site led proctors at the university to collect five times as much money this year over last for a practice known...
bomb pulse n.— «Because of atmospheric testing of nuclear bombs between 1945 and 1960, the atmosphere received a sharp spike of carbon-14, commonly called the “bomb pulse,” that has been declining to normal levels as excess carbon-14 has been...

