Words & Stuff

[...] he was scarred, the skin twisted and pulled as if in fright. Or caught in a powerful wind; although [...] there was a dead, waxy gleam to the...

[...] and remember the heady days when numeeja was all the rage. --Boo.com dusts down website for June relaunch, The Register, 24 January 2006 Never heard the term before....

A "shufti" is apparently a look at something, or a look around, as in "let's have a quick shufti at the specs" (from the Register, which uses the term regularly)....

...we found increased activation in brain regions [including...] posterior cingulate gyrus activation in post-therapy response to forgivability judgments. [...] Empathic and forgivability judgments activate specific regions of the human...

Dashpots are mechanical piston/cylinder devices used to control velocity, dampen vibration, or absorb end of stroke shock. Generically, they are devices that dissipate energy as heat by forcing a...

I ran across the phrase "unitary executive" in a transcript of a speech by Senator Edward Kennedy. Wikipedia says that the unitary executive theory "contends that [...] all of the...

In chess, zugzwang (German for "compulsion to move" [...]) occurs when one player is put at a disadvantage because he or she has to make a move--the player would...

Which reminds me that it was only a few weeks ago when I first encountered the phrase "lost the plot," which I gather is quite common British slang. To "lose...

Apparently, "flat chat" is Australian slang for "flat-out busy," as in "I've been flat chat at work[....] I've had absolutely no time to blog[....]" (from an entry in ModBlog -...

"[...] Not some mullah, some sepoy, wearing out my chappals in hard service.[...]" --White Teeth, by Zadie Smith, 2000; p. 74 of the 2000 Vintage International trade paperback edition...