What’s the correct pronunciation of crayon? Is it cray-on? Cran? Crown? Here’s a dialect survey map that shows the distribution of these pronunciations. This is part of a complete episode.
50/50 girl n.— «He stands in the Hall of Flags in front of the young women selling charity raffle tickets—often called the “50-50 girls,” for the distribution of the raffle proceeds: half to the winner, half to charity...
DISCO n.— «Senior officials of different power distribution companies (DISCOs) also termed the current loadshedding unprecedented, especially in rural areas, and said the present shortage was a catastrophe in Pepco’s history...
tank farm n.— «Molokai has just one distribution facility—Island Petroleum. This ‘tank farm’ as it is called, serves as the only storage facility for the entire island. Three types of gasoline—premium, midgrade and regular, as well as two...
backscatter n.— «Backscatter occurs when a spammer spoofs a legitimate e-mail address to send an unsolicited message to large distribution lists, causing the e-mail server to flood an unsuspecting e-mail address owner’s mailbox with...
true up n.— «Each December, PG&E looks at the costs associated with delivering power to roughly 15 million Californians. In a process called the “true up,” the utility’s executives study their costs to buy electricity from...