exploding offer
n.— «With each week that passes since the original offer, the sum decreases as the candidate dithers (an “exploding offer’). But most students frown on such practices. “It’s a good way of paying off one’s debt in the college bar. But do companies really imagine we’d fall for such baits?’ one student said.» —“Spectrum: From milk round to gravy train” by Fiona Maddocks Times (London, England) July 8, 1986. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
When a teenager went a week without talking as part of a school project, he noticed a surprising side effect: Instead of rehearsing a response to what other people were saying to him, he was focused on listening — and feeling smarter as a result...
Some college students are using the word loyalty as a synonym for monogamy. Are the meanings of these words now shifting? Plus, a biologist discovers a new species of bat, then names it after a poet he admires. Also, warm memories of how a childhood...