A poster for the movie, “Mistress Dispeller”

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: how to vote a lot, how a cult works, how to lose a mistress.

vote-a-rama

“Senate budget rules call for what’s known as a ‘vote-a-rama’ where members of either party offer amendments in a single session.”

Russell Berman, “What’s in the Senate Republican Health-Care Bill,” The Atlantic, June 22, 2017

A vote-a-rama, says The Atlantic, is when “the Senate holds flurries of votes on budget resolutions.” Debate on these bills is limited to 20 hours, and “the resolutions can’t be filibustered, so the only way to draw the process out is to offer amendments,” which, after the debate, “come in rapid fire,” sometimes in the dozens. If the no-debating rule is waived, each side is allowed a whopping 30 seconds to do so.

The term seems to have been coined by Keith Hennessey, former Assistant to the U.S. President for Economic Policy and Director of the U.S. National Economic Council. The suffix –orama, meaning “that which is seen, a sight,” is a back-formation of the words like panorama and diorama. The United States Senate has documented vote-a-ramas going back to 1977.

totalism

“Totalism works because ordinary people – at least those without prior knowledge of the controlling methods of totalism – are subject to the coercive manipulations that leaders employ.”

Alexandra Stein, “How totalism works,” Aeon, June 20, 2017

A totalist structure, says Aeon, is made up of five features. One, the “leader is both charismatic and authoritarian.” Two, the leader rules over a structure that’s “isolating, steeply hierarchical and closed.” The third feature is a “historical totality that has no beginning, middle or end” and an exclusive belief system “controlled entirely by the leader.” Fourth, the leader must “tap fear,” and fifth is the creation of deployable followers “who override their own survival needs and autonomy in the service of the group.”

uffgevva

“Amish culture values deference to others and uffgevva – giving up to the group.”

Donald B. Kraybill, “Slow Time Is God’s Time,” Vestoj, June 2017

In his book, The Amish Way: Patient Faith in a Perilous World, Kraybill describes uffgevva as “surrendering selfish interests and desires,” which involves “yielding one’s personal will to God’s will,” and submitting to the authority and wisdom of the community.

drip dickey

“To avoid spilling even one drop, you order a year’s supply of what’s known as drip dickeys, which are special collars placed around the neck of wine bottles.”

Al Vuona, “Symptoms and signs of a true wine geek,” Telegram, June 22, 2017

Drip dickey is a brand of wine collar, an accessory that goes around the bottle’s neck to prevent dripping and staining. A dickey — also spelled dicky — can refer to a detachable shirt front or a shirt collar. The origin isn’t clear except that the word might be a diminutive of the name Dick.

mistress dispeller

“Yu, a gentle-looking man in his early forties, with the placid demeanor of a yoga instructor, works as a mistress dispeller, a job that barely existed a decade ago but is becoming common in major Chinese cities.”

Jiayang Fan, “China’s Mistress Dispellers,” The New Yorker, June 26, 2017

Mistress dispellers, says The New York Times, “specialize in ending affairs between married men and their extramarital lovers.” Hired by “a scorned wife” for upwards of tens of thousands of dollars, their services include coaching “women on how to save their marriages” and subtly infiltrating “the mistress’s life, winning her friendship and trust in an attempt to break up the affair.”

In Chinese, a mistress is known as a xiao san, says The New Yorker, or “little third,” which can mean “everything from a partner in a casual affair to a long-term ‘kept woman.’” Besides faking a friendship, other mistress-dispelling methods include payoffs, public shaming, a sudden job transfer, and seduction by a male mistress dispeller.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: ante-dating a fashion term, an unfunny parody, goat love.

capsule wardrobe

“In 1985, Donna Karan launched a collection centered on what she called her seven easy pieces. It offered working women a stylish, flattering capsule wardrobe that could be simply mixed and matched for a variety of looks—and a solution to the perennial problem of what to wear to the office.”

Marc Bain, “Why it’s so hard for women to figure out what to wear to work in 2017,” Quartz, June 11, 2017

While Business Insider says London boutique owner Susie Faux coined the term capsule wardrobe in the 1970s, there are several earlier citations. The earliest we found is from 1947, but it’s a partial citation and difficult to confirm. The earliest confirmed citation we found is from a book first published in 1956, What Shall I Wear?: The What, Where, When, and how Much of Fashion by Claire McCardell.

spoofing

“You could call it a new blend of telemarketing call, and it’s becoming harder for us to filter, thanks to what’s known as ‘spoofing.’”

Meredith Anderson, “Cracking down on unwanted calls,” WRDW-TV, June 15, 2017

Spoofing, says WRDW-TV, refers to “when telemarketers use sneaky software to create a fake caller ID from a local number so you think you are getting a real call from a local number.” Spoofing can also involve fake email addresses and URLs, says Investopedia.

The word spoof meaning hoax or deception originated around 1889 from spouf, a game invented by British comedian Arthur Roberts. Spoof came to mean to parody or satirize around 1914.

cyber-CANOE

“At the University of Hawaii at Manoa, they have what’s called a cyber-canoe — no, it’s not a virtual boat. It uses ultra-high resolution screens that are seamless light emitting diode displays — LED screens.”

Karin Heineman, “3-D Wall of Virtual Reality,” Inside Science, June 16, 2017

CANOE of cyber-CANOE stands for “cyber-enabled collaboration, analysis, navigation, and observation environment,” and is “a hybrid reality visualization environment allowing you to look at large-scale data in resolutions that we couldn’t achieve previously.”

Pinoy pood

“They come stuffed in red Chinese takeout bags with ‘Chinese food’ crossed out and rewritten as ‘Pinoy pood’ — joking slang for ‘Filipino food.’”

Ligaya Mishan, “In Tama’s No-Frills Space, the Filipino Food Is Anything But,” The New York Times, June 15, 2017

Pinoy is an informal way of saying “Filipino” and seems to come from –pino of Filipino and the suffix –y. As for where pood comes from, we’re really not sure. If we had to wager a guess, perhaps the p- of pagkain, the Tagalog word for “food,” and the –ood of “food.” While we may not know were pood comes from, we do know we like this parody.

rush-grumble

“This is what’s called the ‘rush-grumble.’ The noises sound like blubbering, mewing, snuffling, clucking, almost like a dog squeaky toy that’s seen better days.”

Andrew Amelinckx, “Goat Sex: Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask,” Modern Farmer, June 16, 2017

The rush-grumble is an all-in-one caprine mating call and dance. Modern Farmer says the buck runs next to the female, “nuzzling her side and rear with his tongue out and his front legs and ears jutting forward, all while hooting and hollering like a country boy at a monster truck rally.” And they say goat-romance is dead.

[Photo: “Toby and Clarissa (2)” by The Case Farm, CC BY 2.0]

“O the Roast Beef of Old England (‘The Gate of Calais’)” by William Hogarth

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: an undecided government, a gastronomical insult, a drug is a drug is a drug is a drug.

hung parliament

“In the case of a hung parliament, the leader of the party with the most seats is given the opportunity to try to form a government.”

Rajeev Syal and Alan Travis, “What is a hung parliament and what happens now?” The Guardian, June 9, 2017

In the United Kingdom, says The Guardian, to gain a majority and the right to form the next government, a party must win 326 of 650 seats in the House of Commons. The Conservatives, the party of current Prime Minister Theresa May, won “only 318 seats, eight short of that magic number 326, which delivers an overall majority and the keys to Downing Street.” The result? A hung parliament.

The term hung parliament comes from hung jury, a jury unable to reach a verdict. That phrase originated around 1838 while hung parliament is from the early 1970s.

les Rosbifs

“The historical French slang for the British, les Rosbifs, references our love of a good roast. I’m glad that they never got around to calling us Yorkshire puddings.”

Richard Vines, “Where to Get the Best Roast Beef,” Bloomberg, June 12, 2017

According to the BBC, the moniker Rosbifs became associated with the English “as far as the French were concerned in the 18th Century, simply because it was a very popular way of cooking,” and was the title of a popular patriotic song, “The Roast Beef of England.”

ear hustle

“‘Ear Hustle’ — the phrase is slang for eavesdropping — is a collaboration between Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams, both prisoners at San Quentin, and Nigel Poor, a Bay Area visual artist who teaches photography classes at the prison.”

Beth Schwartzapfel, “Meet the Creators of the New Podcast From Inside San Quentin Prison,” The Marshall Project, June 12, 2017

According to Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, the term ear hustle originated in the 1990s as prison slang. By extension, an ear hustler is someone who gossips or eavesdrops. According to Street Talk: Da Official Guide to Hip-Hop & Urban Slanguage, ear hustling refers specifically to overhearing false information and is also known as burglarizing a conversation.

coffin cubicle

“These small, wooden boxes of 15 sq ft, are known as ‘coffin cubicles.’”

Benny Lam, “Boxed in: life inside the ‘coffin cubicles’ of Hong Kong – in pictures,” The Guardian, June 7, 2017

Coffin cubicles refer to impossibly small subdivided apartments in Hong Kong, big enough for one narrow bed and sealed all around with wooden planks. An 400 square foot apartment  “can be subdivided to accommodate nearly 20 double-decker sealed bed spaces,” says The Guardian.

devil’s dandruff

“Though, personally, my favorite DEA-published slang term for cocaine would have to be ‘devil’s dandruff.’”

Kate Ryan, “The DEA Has The Best Slang Terms For All The Drugs,” GOOD, June 12, 2017

Other Drug Enforcement Administration slang terms for narcotics include west coast turnarounds for amphetamines, famous dimes for crack, Beyonce for heroin, Hawaiian sunshine for LSD, and Alice B. Toklas for marijuana.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: a winning word, a hangover non-cure, an intense study of nature.

marocain

“Ananya Vinay from Fresno correctly spelled the word marocain – a type of dress fabric – to defeat Rohan Rajeev, 14, from Oklahoma.”

“Ananya Vinay, 12, wins US spelling bee with ‘marocain’,” BBC, June 2, 2017

Marocain is a dress crepe “similar to Canton crepe.” What’s Canton crepe? It’s a soft silk or rayon fabric “with a finely crinkled texture, similar to but heavier than crêpe de Chine.” What’s crêpe de Chine?  A thin, usually silk fabric “used to make dresses or blouses.”

The word marocain comes from the French word for “Moroccan,” according to the BBC.

banana bag

“This year, you can go into a fully qualified medical tent and buy yourself what’s known as a banana bag – the ultimate hangover cure in IV form – and have your feet rubbed while you ingest it.”

Elisa Bray, “Secret Garden Party: Why a pioneering festival wants to change the format,” The Independent, June 6, 2017

A banana bag — named for its yellow contents — is an IV bag commonly given to “patients at risk for alcohol withdrawal symptoms or those who present to the emergency department (ED) acutely intoxicated,” says Academic Life in Emergency Medicine.

One of the rationales behind this is “the administration of fluids is conventionally believed to help speed up sobriety.” However, studies have shown “there’s no evidence that IV fluids expedite sobriety in patients with acute alcohol intoxication.” Presumably, this means banana bags won’t be much help with curing or preventing hangovers either.

Barnes dance

“The District Department of Transportation says the intersection of 14th and Irving Streets Northwest will soon be the site of what’s called a ‘Barnes dance’ crossing.”

John Domen, “Northwest DC intersection getting a ‘Barnes dance’ makeover,” WTOP, June 4, 2017

The Barnes dance, also called a scramble or pedestrian scramble, “is an intersection where car traffic halts for a bit so pedestrians can cross in all directions — including diagonally,” says CityLab. It’s named for traffic engineer Henry Barnes. While he didn’t invent the crossing, he did popularize it during his time as street commissioner in Denver.

The “dance” part of the phrase is said to come from a reporter who said the crossings “made the people so happy they’re dancing in the streets.” It’s also obviously a play on barn dance, a social event with music and dancing, often taking place in a barn.

charrette

“The event on Saturday was what’s known as a ‘design charrette.’ Organizers say they plan to hold more in the future, and to invite people from the neighborhoods near the Innerbelt.”

Kabir Bhatia, “Planners Try to Figure Out What Comes Next After a Highway Becomes Open Space,” WKSU, June 5, 2017

A charrette is “a period of intense work, especially group work, undertaken to meet a deadline.” It seems to have originally referred to architectural students but now may apply to any type of work. The word comes from a design term, en charrette, French for “on the cart,” used to describe the frantic period before a deadline and originating from a time when drawings were transported by cart.

bioblitz

“Howard and other naturalists surveyed Rock Run on Saturday as part of what’s called a ‘bioblitz’ to find rare, threatened and endangered native species to make a case to the state that the upper watershed of Shawnee State Forest should be saved from logging.”

Megan Henry, “Naturalists hold ‘bioblitz’ to save section of Shawnee State Forest from logging,” The Columbus Dispatch, June 4, 2017

A bioblitz, also BioBlitz, is an “intense period of biological recording within a specific area,” usually over 24 hours and involving both “experts and amateurs taking an inventory of all the living organisms within an area.”

A blitz can refer to “heavy aerial bombardment”; “an intense campaign”; and in football, a “sudden charge upon the quarterback by one or more of the linebackers or defensive backs when the ball is snapped.” The word first appeared in English in 1940, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, as a shortening of blitzkrieg, a German word meaning “rapid attack” and translating literally as “lightning war.”

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: side struck by lightning; an unusual second toe; feeling icky about technology.

side splash

“Justin believes that he experienced what’s called a side flash or side splash, in which the lightning ‘splashes’ from something that has been struck—such as a tree or telephone pole—hopscotching to a nearby object or person.”

Charlotte Huff, “What It’s Like to Be Struck by Lightning,” The Atlantic, May 25, 2017

According to U.S. meteorologist Ron Holle, direct lightning strikes “are surprisingly rare,” and “responsible for no more than 3 to 5 percent of injuries.” Side splashes make up “20 to 30 percent of injuries and fatalities” while “by far the most common cause of injury is ground current, in which the electricity courses along the earth’s surface.”

silk

“Pupil barristers, as trainees are known, start there at £65,000 per year, and the top silks each make several million pounds.”

Simon Akam, “The Exquisitely English (and Amazingly Lucrative) World of London Clerks,” Bloomberg, May 23, 2017

Silk is the nickname given to “barristers who’ve achieved the rank of Queen’s Counsel,” says Bloomberg, and comes from “the plush material used to make their robes.” The Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest recorded usage is from 1821: “Our solicitor has heard with due attention the speeches delivered from learned silk.”

postural sway

“‘Most of us aren’t aware that we’re moving around all the time,’ says Lena Ting of Emory University, who measures what’s called postural sway in standing people as well as in animals.”

Susan Milius, “Here’s how flamingos balance on one skinny leg,” Business Insider, May 26, 2017

Postural sway refers to horizontal movement around one’s center of gravity. Simply “keeping the body vertical,” says Business Insider, requires “constant sensing and muscular correction for wavering.”

Greek foot

“Today the toe—and the foot it belongs to—is often called a ‘Greek foot’ by art historians and podiatrists.”

Melissa Banigan, “Why the Venus de Milo Has Extra-Long Second Toes,” Atlas Obscura, May 23, 2017

Greek foot refers to having a second toe that’s longer than the first, says Atlas Obscura, so-called because of its frequent depiction in ancient Greek sculptures. In the early 20th century, Dudley Morton, an American orthopedic surgeon, christened the phenomenon after himself, calling it Morton’s toe. Fifteen to 20 percent of the general population has it, and it may cause bunions, hammertoes, and chronic pain.

yuck factor

“He couldn’t face the idea of the operation. It devastated the family. That shows the strength of the yuck factor.”

Anonymous, “Why I donated one of my kidneys to a stranger,” The Guardian, May 20, 2017

The yuck factor refers to an instinctive negative response against new technology and was coined by bioethicist Arthur Caplan, according to Environmental Health Perspectives. For example, the yuck factor might deter people from using recycled sewage as their tap water or from donating a kidney, as discussed in The Guardian article. The yuck factor is also known as the wisdom of repugnance or appeal to disgust.