Slang word of the day: ecohacking

Today's slang word of the day is ecohacking. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

ecohacking

noun - uncountable

• the use of science in very large-scale projects to change the environment for the better/stop global warming (e.g. by using mirrors in space to deflect sunlight away from Earth).
  
  -- "Oxford Word of the Year 2008: Hypermiling", Oxford University Press Blog, November 10 2008

  Word was a semi-finalist in the New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year for 2008 selection.

notes

• See also hack.

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: hypermiler

Today's slang word of the day is hypermiler. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

hypermiler

noun

• a person who hypermiles.
  
  "Hypermiling" was the New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year for 2008.

  Rather than aiming for good mileage or even great mileage, hypermilers seek to push their gas tanks to the limit and achieve hypermileage, exceeding EPA ratings for miles per gallon.
  
  -- "Oxford Word of the Year 2008: Hypermiling", Oxford University Press Blog, November 10 2008

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: gaslight

Today's slang word of the day is gaslight. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

gaslight

verb - transitive

• to slowly and methodically psychologically manipulate a person, with the goal of driving them insane.

  To celebrate major events in each other's lives, one of the traditions within the department was to gaslight a colleague.

origin

• From the 1938 play Gas Light. For more details, see the Wikipedia article for "Gaslighting".

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: pin one's ears back

Today's slang word of the day is pin one's ears back. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

pin one's ears back

verb - transitive

• to chastise.
• to defeat soundly.

  First he became champion of San Bernardino's Arrowview Junior High. Then, at 14, he went hunting bigger game, and got his ears pinned back in the first round of a Santa Monica boys' tournament. It was a terrible shock.
  
  -- "Sport: Advantage Kramer", Time, Sep 01, 1947

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: leg it

Today's slang word of the day is leg it. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

leg it

verb

• to run.

  Leg it - it's the police!

  Lightman: So the kid legs it, right?
  
  -- "React to Contact", Lie To Me (TV, 2010)

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: tickle the ivories

Today's slang word of the day is tickle the ivories. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

tickle the ivories

verb

• to play the piano.

  Consider them keys to the city: Anyone who gets a sudden itch to tickle the ivories will be able to play free public pianos in 50 places throughout New York City...
  
  -- "Pianos to plunk down around NYC", Associated Press, Sara Kugler Frazier, June 21 2010

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: make (one's) bones

Today's slang word of the day is make (one's) bones. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

make (one's) bones

verb

• to earn a respected position in a field of work.

  Screenwriter Jenny Lumet has a penchant for "Playhouse 90"-type confrontations, which may be a genetic inevitability, given who her father is: director Sidney Lumet, who made his bones in '50s television.
  
  -- "Movie review: 'Rachel Getting Married'", Chicago Tribune, Michael Phillips, October 9 2008

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: jackwagon

Today's slang word of the day is jackwagon. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

jackwagon

noun

• general insult.

  Therapist: Maybe we should chug on over to mamby-pamby land where maybe we can find some confidence for you, you jackwagon.
  
  -- Geico commercial, 2010

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: ranga

Today's slang word of the day is ranga. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

ranga

noun

• a person with red hair. Australian slang.

  A "deeply off the record" tweet from NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell was posted on Twitter today in an embarrassing gaffe in which he appeared to call redheaded Prime Minister Julia Gillard a "ranga".
  
  -- "Oops: O'Farrell 'off the record' tweet", The Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Tatnell, July 15 2010

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: Reality Distortion Field

Today's slang word of the day is Reality Distortion Field. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

Reality Distortion Field

noun

• from Wikipedia: "the idea that Steve Jobs is able to convince himself and others to believe almost anything with a mix of charm, charisma, bluster, exaggeration, marketing and persistence."

  Jobs didn't even attempt to justify the use of micro-SIM whilst on stage within the protection of his Reality Distortion Field, knowing there's no possible justification for using micro-SIM cards except to hand control over to the telcos.
  
  -- "Apple betrays loyal customers with iPad's micro-SIM slot", The Sidney Morning Herald - digihub blog, aturner, January 29 2010

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: hurt locker

Today's slang word of the day is hurt locker. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

hurt locker

noun

• a metaphorical bad place one goes to after/while experiencing defeat, injury, distress, etc. Military slang.

  The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 1991 on the Stanford basketball team's lack of success. The coach complained: "If we go 0-2 this week, we're definitely in the hurt locker".
  
  -- "What's a "hurt locker"?", BBC News Magazine, 8 March 2010

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: VPL

Today's slang word of the day is VPL. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

VPL

noun

• acronym for "visible panty lines". That is: the edges of underwear visible through outerwear.

  While thongs certainly have been, um, "overexposed" in recent years, they do women a great service by helping them avoid "VPL - visible panty lines."
  
  -- "Is the thong dead?", The Week, February 3 2010

  WARNING: Citation contains a picture that may not be suitable for workplaces.

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: goose

Today's slang word of the day is goose. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

goose

noun

• a fool. Often used playfully towards children, as in the example sentence.

  You silly goose!

verb

• to grab or pinch someone's buttocks or upper thigh.

  I can't believe that old man goosed me.

• to augment.

  A number of schools rely on the Hopsing brand of cashew chicken sauce mix, a powdered product made in Springfield, colored with turmeric and goosed with MSG.
  
  -- "Missouri Chinese: Two Cultures Claim This Chicken", The New York Times, John T. Edge, March 10 2009

• to use the accelerator of a vehicle, or to open the throttle of a machine.

  Goose it!

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: topless

Today's slang word of the day is topless. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

topless

adjective

• without any clothing covering the torso. Not slang.

  We're going to a topless beach later.

• having no laptop or mobile device usage allowed.

  Frustrated by workers so plugged in that they tuned out in the middle of business meetings, a growing number of companies are going "topless," as in no laptops allowed. Also banned from some conference rooms: BlackBerrys, iPhones and other devices on which so many people have come to depend...
  
  Wilkens' firm, Adaptive Path, now encourages everyone to leave their laptops at their desks. His colleague, Dan Saffer, coined the term "topless" as in laptop-less.
  
  -- "Business Meetings going 'topless'", Los Angeles Times, Jessica Guynn, March 31, 2008

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: faff around

Today's slang word of the day is faff around. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

faff around

verb

• to spend time on a non-productive activity; "waste time". Also faff, faff about. British slang.

  A new report says that we waste three hours a day faffing around, doing nothing in particular, pootling, dawdling, pottering, hanging about.
  
  -- "The joy of simply faffing around", The Guardian, Tom Hodgkinson, 13 August 2008

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: LOBNH

Today's slang word of the day is LOBNH. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

LOBNH

adjective

• acronym for "lights on but nobody home", an insulting notation used by doctors in the UK on medical charts.

  From LOBNH (Lights On But Nobody Home), CNS-QNS (Central Nervous System - Quantity Not Sufficient), to the delightful term "pumpkin positive", which refers to the implication that a penlight shone into the patient's mouth would encounter a brain so small that the whole head would light up.
  
  -- "Doctor slang is a dying art", BBC News, 18 August 2003

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)

Slang word of the day: anti-Midas touch

Today's slang word of the day is anti-Midas touch. Click here to vote on usage, vulgarity, etc.

anti-Midas touch

noun

• a curse in which everything one interacts with turns out badly. From King Midas (of Greek mythology) whose touch would turn things to gold.

  It was like the golden one had the anti-Midas touch: everything he touched turned to dirt.
  
  -- "Perky Parks plays to crowd", Scotsman - Sports, Richard Bath, 14 March 2010

-- Walter (waltergr@aol.com)