“Do the needful” is a phrase commonly heard from people in India working in tech support. Though it’s fallen out of fashion in British dialects, it’s still common in India to mean “do what you must.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
A former cabbie shares his favorite jargon, like green pea and making your nut. Someone waving down an occupied cab is known as a bingo, and the cabbie will usually tell the dispatcher to send another car. A San Diego cabdriver has gathered much...
Has your boss ever used the expression “Let’s put the moose on the table”? This management buzzphrase, meaning “let’s address the problem everyone’s been avoiding,” is relatively new, showing up in print around the early 1990s. The phrase pops up in...
mandy n.— «In some organisations, people refer to their annual vacation as “mandy”—short for “mandatory leave”—an interesting corporate euphemism that implies executives are so engrossed with their work, they need to be literally ordered out of...
