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Thursday, January 10, 2008

Solastalgia, happy sack, vein brother

Recent interesting catchwords from the Double-Tongued Dictionary are:

solastalgia n. a form of homesickness you get when you are still at home; feeling as though an environment has changed around you.

happy sack n. an air-sickness bag, the kind typically used on airplanes.

vein brother n. a man with which you get high on injected drugs, especially if you share a needle.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Circus gold, singlism

Recent interesting catchwords from the Double-Tongued Dictionary are:

circus gold n. elephant dung.

singlism n. bias against people who are not married or part of a couple.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Trunk monkey, wasta

Recent interesting catchwords from the Double-Tongued Dictionary are:

trunk monkey n. a rear gunner in an armed vehicle, caravan, or convoy. Used among military personnel and contractors in Iraq. It’s possible that the term derives from this advertisement from Suburban Auto Group, and others in the same series which first aired in Portland, Oregon, in January 2003.

wasta n. the Arabic word for influence, personal connections; “pull” or “juice.” While not yet fully adopted as an English word, wasta is increasingly familiar to American soldiers serving in the Middle East. A previous surge in use of the term among Anglophones happened during the first Gulf War.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

South to south

A recent interesting catchword from the Double-Tongued Dictionary is:

south to south adj. arbitrary jargon used at the World Bank to indicate migration from one poor country to another. “South to north” indicates migration from a poor country to a rich one.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Calcutta wager

A recent interesting catchword from the Double-Tongued Dictionary is:

Calcutta wager n. a form of gambling on a sporting event involving multiple contestants in which each contestant’s name is auctioned off to observers. At the end of the event, the high bidder for a winning contestant’s name receives a percentage of the total amount taken in by the auction. Also known as the “Calcutta auction” or just a “Calcutta,” this gambling is regulated by American law but has been associated with golf, billiards, and other sports.

This is the personal weblog of Grant Barrett, editor of the Double-Tongued Dictionary, a collection of words from the fringes of English. More about this site...

Recent Catchwords