Lee from Philadelphia’s green Amazon parrot is named Alexander Hamilton, not Polly, but strangers still greet him with Polly want a cracker? The joke is old: Poll was a nickname for parrots as far back as the 1600s, and by 1848 the cracker line was...
tank n.— «By Thursday, when the president met for the first time with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in “the tank,” the secure Pentagon conference room, the campaign had progressed.» —“After Campaign Push, Obama Cultivates Military” by Elisabeth...
insourcing n.— «Under the Aer Lingus deal workers who returned to the airline would have to operate on the basis of full flexibility and mobility within and between departments, buildings and work locations.…For unions, such leave-and-return...
door-stepper
n.— «Jonathan Ross is avoiding the tabloid door-steppers by staying in a Mayfair hotel, and only using the staff entrance.» —“Blow-dried Golden Retrievers” Popbitch (United Kingdom) Nov. 13, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Welcome to another newsletter from A Way with Words. We've got cheese! It was our second week in a row talking about the books of David Crystal. (He deserves it!) This time, we plunged into the rich pages of his book "As They Say in...
bumping n.— «The main area in which the NCAA found violations was recruiting. The main offense was a practice called bumping, where Neuheisel or a member of his staff would run into a recruit during a period when contact was forbidden and claim it...

