skinner n.— «Cambridge Police spokesman Frank Pasquarello said he has heard only the word in reference to some form of molestation or sexual violation. “We’ve definitely heard [skinner] before, but what it means depends on who you talk...
re-home v.— «Richard Kanareck, a spokesman for eBay, described the process of selling on unwanted presents on auction sites with the euphemism “re-homing.”» —“eBay bonanza after shoppers spend £4bn on unwanted...
Brooklyn side n.— «If a righty’s ball hits just to the left of the head pin, that’s called a crossover or, in the vernacular, hitting the Brooklyn side. Why? Bowling originated in the East, and a lot of its jargon came from there...
Jim Wilson n.— «About 50,000 bodies were air-shipped last year.…American, meanwhile, has developed a code name for its program: Jim Wilson. Funeral directors calling the airline in the presence of the deceased’s family can simply...
data valdez n.— «“If we don’t see headlines in a bad way, if we don’t see a ‘data valdez,’ a ‘data spill,’ then we’ll know they’re doing their jobs well,” says David Steer, spokesman for TRUSTe, which certifies the reliability of e...
fireline cord n.— «Martie Schramm, a spokesman for the firefighting effort, said the explosive teams lay what’s called a fireline cord along areas where a 1999 storm left piles of dead wood. The cord blasts the wood into tiny shards and...