When Julius Caesar chose to cross the Rubicon River and march against his rival in Rome, he supposedly said Alea jacta est, or “The die is cast,” indicating that at that point, there was no going back. The phrase is a reference to...
An artist asks strangers to write haiku about the pandemic and gets back poetic, poignant glimpses of life under lockdown. Plus, the new book Queenspotting features the colorful language of beekeeping! Bees tell each other about a good source of...
Sheep-dipping is a business term for when employees are made to drink the Kool-Aid, often at tedious briefings or sales seminars they’re forced to attend. This is part of a complete episode.
citizen science n.— «The result is an impressively long-running example of “citizen science,” the term for projects in which amateurs gather field data for future research, making up in numbers what we lack in training and...
ghost pot n.— «The commission has purchased side-scanning radars, installed the equipment onto watermen’s boats, trained them on how to use the devices, and turned them loose in search of lost traps, also known as ghost pots...
floorplanning n.— «The move is intended to stimulate small business and consumer lending, which has dried up in the wake of the credit crisis. Most dealers finance their inventory—a process called floorplanning—through automakers or banks...