Fess up: do you have a pet name for your car? How about your computer? Martha and Grant discuss the urge to give nicknames to inanimate objects in our lives. Also, why do we speak of vetting a political candidate? And what in the world is a zoo...
sharp adj.— «The technical term for the climber who goes first is the “leader”; that’s the climber on the “sharp” end of the rope—the end you can hurt yourself on.» —“A Match Made in Canada” by Michael J. Ybarra Wall Street Journal Nov. 12, 2008...
Ever had a friend who never can quite say “goodbye”? Say you’re finishing up an email conversation, you both say like “so long,” but then up pops another email from him, asking just one more question or mentioning one more bit of news. A caller from...
gearing n.— «The managers have an incentive to take too much risk in order to deliver the excess return. One method is to borrow from the banks, in the expectation that the return on the new assets will be higher than the rate of interest owed to...