day by day: a blog
August 18, 2007
notes on terms, phrases, acronyms
1) Abcission Layer (interior landscaping): a "thin plate of cells which forms at the point of abscission", which is the "controlled shedding of part of a plant e.g. separation of leaves from the stem."
2) Aspirin (finance) [stands for "Australian Stock Price Riskless Indexed Notes"]: "Zero-coupon four-year bonds repayable at face value plus the percentage increase by which the Australian stock index of all ordinaries (common stocks) rises above a predefined level during the given period."
3) Astrology (cultural studies): "a substitute for sexual pleasure of a passive nature.... Communion with the stars is an almost unrecognised and therefore tolerable substitute of the forbidden relation with an omnipotent father figure." (definition by T. W. Adorno)
4) Blend (solo singing): the smoothness (or not) of the transition between the head voice and the chest voice.
5) Bright Work (maritime): the metallic or wooden fixtures of a ship buffed to a high, glossy shine by the sedulous, repetitive polishing on the part of the vessel's crew.
6) Bump Keys (crime): tools for use in picking a pin tumbler lock.
7) Campers (hotels and restaurants): people who continue to sit at a table and prolong their discussion long after finishing their food and paying their bill (also known as Whalers).
8) Caseous (pathology): "having a consistency like that of cottage cheese".
9) Cloud Suck (hanggliding): phenomenon "where pilots can get sucked into clouds as the lift increases strongly near the cloud."
10) Cockled (bibliophilia): adjective used to describe paper in a book which is wrinkled, wavy or puckered as a result of exposure to water or to very humid conditions.
11) Duck's Egg (education): Victorian schoolboy slang for the result of a game which one loses by a score of one to zero.
12) Functional Food (food processing industry): food which is "beneficial to one's health by contributing nutritional value beyond the expected level of nutrients. These foods can make treatment and risk reduction claims, in addition to providing nutritional information."
13) Gehinnom (religion): name for Hell in Rabbinic literature (with strong connotations of fire or burning). No one except a very aggravated sinner can be consigned to Gehinnom for more than 12 months.
14) Handy (consumer gadgets): German noun meaning a cellphone.
15) Hot Manure (horticulture): natural waste from animals such as horses, elephants and giraffes which can damage plants if applied to a garden while still fresh.
16) Kill Box (military): term used during Operation Desert Storm (1991) to define a "30-mile by 30-mile geographic designation within the Kuwait theater of operations in which autonomous strike operations were conducted."
17) Limbus (physiology): visible borderline between the cornea and the white globe of the human eye.
18) Notions (needlepoint): the basic tools for a sewing job, such as scissors, needle, thread.
19) Prairie Dogging (late capitalism): "Something loud happens in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on."
20) Primo Slide (skateboarding): tipping the skateboard which you are riding onto its side, standing on the board's other edge (also called a "rail stand") and contriving to make the board slide along as you balance on it.
21) Rail (squash): "shot hit close to and parallel to the sidewalls &mdash: that is, down the line or alley; a power drive hit for length."
22) Red-lining (finance): "Illegal discrimination in making loans, insurance coverage, or other financial services available to people or property in certain areas because of poor economic conditions, high levels of fraudulent transaction, or frequent defaults."
23) Rod Pocket (curtains): a "hem made by folding the fabric down, tucking under the excess and stitching along the tuck under. Each end is left open for inserting a rod."
24) Sintir (musicology): "a three stringed skin-covered bass plucked lute used by the Gnawa people of Morocco. It is approximately the size of a guitar, with a body a carved from a log and covered on the playing side with camel. The neck is a simple stick with one short and two long goat strings that produce a percussive sound similar to a pizzicato cello or double bass. So this is an instrument that includes equal parts camel, goat and man."
25) Soaking (ceramics): "holding the kiln at final firing temperature for a period of time. This is usually done to mature the clay and give the glaze opportunity to flow and heal imperfections".
26) Tideline (bibliophilia): the narrow, irregular stain in circular form produced on a page from the "accumulation of chemicals at the edge of a liquid spot", such as one made by a drop of coffee, wine or grease.
27) Transducer (engineering): "device that produces an electrical output that is proportional to a mechanical input."
28) Vamp (clothing): late medieval term for the front part of a shoe, terminating roughly at the front of the ankle.
29) White Balance (technologically-mediated representations of reality): "The colo[u]r of light reflected from an object varies with the light source. The human brain is able to adapt to changes in the colo[u]r of the light source, with the result that white objects appear white whether seen in shade, direct sunlight or under incandescent lighting. Unlike the film used in film cameras, digital cameras [sic] can mimic this adjustment by processing images according to the colo[u]r of the light source. This is known as white balance."
30) ZIF (computing) [stands for Zero Insertion Force]: "a type of chip socket [in] which an arm or release device is used to lock the chip in place."
PS
31) chunking (Formula 1 motor-racing, subscategory: tyre technology): "when small bits of rubber, often referred to as marbles, get stuck to the tyre and form larger chunks. These then harden on the surface, and can eventually damage the tyre underneath.... 'It was delamination caused by excessive "chunking",' [Hirode] Hamashima told autosport.com. 'The "chunking" got hardened as [Hamilton] braked for Turn Nine. It seems that there was an (unexplained) extra force applied to where the chunk was, and this delaminated the tyre.'"
Posted by njenkins at August 18, 2007 11:53 PM
With the exception of interspersed quotations, all writing is © 2007-09 by Nicholas Jenkins