vertical drinking n.— «Police in Preston want to call time on drinkers who stand at the bar, or as they call it “vertical drinking.” According to the Times, they believe that drinking while standing in pubs and bars is one of...
switched on adj.— «“Sgt. Turner embodied what we in 1st Sqdn., 32nd CAV refer to as being ‘switched on’,” said Lt. Col. Arthur Kandarian, commander, 1st Sqdn., 32nd CAV. “He understood why we are here, he understood why our...
descoping v.— «The 130 half-finished clinics will simply be removed from the contract—”de-scoping” is a new word one picks up quickly when looking at the hundreds of aborted projects in Iraq.» —“Iraq’s Reconstruction a...
augmentee n.— «The transferred personnel are called “augmentees” in Pentagonese. According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, the Navy is putting about 10,000 personnel—from enlisted through officer ranks up to...
three-block war n.— «Because counterinsurgencies are about winning hearts and minds, officers must be able to juggle what’s called the “three-block war,” fighting insurgents in one block, tending to wounded locals in another...
T-wall n.— «Developed by the Israelis in order to put up a physical barrier between themselves and the Palestinians, the Iraq version of these segmented walls is constructed out of thousands of portable, twelve-foot-high slabs of steel...