Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for some of the most interesting words of the week. The latest: buddies to help you study (but not cook or clean); a starfish that’ll kill everyone you love; a defense technique from the Greatest.

gaokao nanny

“Professional Gaokao nannies are highly educated students or recent graduates that move in with students to study with them in the run up to the exam.”

Yvette Tan, “Gaokao season: China embarks on dreaded national exams,” BBC, June 7, 2016

The gaokao is a grueling two-day exam, says CNN, taken by many high schoolers in the People’s Republic of China to gain entrance into the country’s most prestigious universities. According to the BBC, failing the gaokao “almost guarantees a lifetime of low-ranking employment, and family disappointment,” hence the hiring of gaokao nannies. However, while gaokao nannies are highly educated, they might be “weak in terms of cooking and cleaning.”

now-or-never bottleneck

“The now-or-never bottleneck has powerful implications for language acquisition, because learning how to process language can only take place ‘in the moment’.”

Linda B. Glaser, “‘Now-or-never bottleneck’ explains language acquisition,” ScienceDaily, June 10, 2016

In a new paper, researchers assert that a phenomenon they’re dubbing the now-or-never bottleneck has a profound effect on language processing, acquisition, and evolution. To overcome “fundamental limitations on sensory and cognitive memory,” the researchers propose “the brain’s language processing system overcomes this bottleneck by processing linguistic input immediately, before it is obliterated by later input and lost forever.”

Ophiohamus georgemartini

“A brittle star, found deep in the South Pacific, has been officially dubbed Ophiohamus georgemartini because of its likeness to the thorny crown found on the cover of book two in the Game of Thrones series, A Clash of Kings.”

Sarah Keartes, “Meet the Game of Thrones Brittle Star: Ophiohamus Georgemartini,” Nerdist, May 31, 2016

Other literary nature names include the Nabokovia, a butterfly named for Vladimir Nabokov; the Livyatan melville, an extinct sperm whale named for Herman Melville; and the Megachile chomskyi, a bee named for Noam Chomsky.

poverty simulation

“The Singapore Island Country Club, for instance, was recently criticized when it planned a poverty simulation for its club members; it costs $21,000 a year to belong to the club.”

Erik Sherman, “Misery Tourists: How the Wealthy Learn What It’s Like to Be Poor,” Fortune, June 1, 2016

Poverty simulation workshops are designed, as Fortune says, for “the privileged try to understand at least a bit of what the poor and refugees face.” Some poverty simulations have been long held without controversy. For instance, the World Economic Forum annual meeting “has held a refugee simulation for the last eight years.”

However, other workshops have been criticized for taking place at luxurious spots like the Ritz Carlton and for helping to make participants into what might be called “misery tourists, collecting experiences and assuaging discomfort by having now done their part.”

rope-a-dope

“Look at that. There’s Apollo [Creed] using my rope-a-dope defense.”

Roger Ebert, “Watching Rocky II with Muhammad Ali,” RogerEbert.com, July 31, 1979

Rope-a-dope refers to a boxing strategy, often attributed to Muhammad Ali, in which one puts oneself in what looks like a losing position — backed up like a “dope on the ropes” — only to take one’s opponent off-guard and ultimately win.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for some of the most interesting words of the week. The latest: the perils of a bike riding; robots saving on light bulbs; guns without a trace.

bicycle face

“Of all the physical woes attributed to the bicycle as it became popular in the 1890s, the one that most strained credulity was the ‘bicycle face.’”

Margaret Guroff, “Bicycle Face,” The Atlantic, June 2016

The pseudo-syndrome bicycle face was “characterized by wide, wild eyes” and “a grim set to the mouth,” all due to “the stress of incessant balancing,” according to Margaret Guroff in her book, The Mechanical Horse: How the Bicycle Reshaped American Life. The disorder allegedly went as far as to render “children unrecognizable to their own mothers.”

dark factory

“The ultimate goal is what’s known as ‘the dark factory’ – one in which you don’t even need to turn on the lights, because there aren’t any humans to require them.”

Robert Colvile, “Is a robot about to take your job?” The Telegraph, June 6, 2016

A dark factory is a factory that’s almost entirely automated and hence, needs no light for human laborers to work by.

entourage effect

“In the process of what’s called the ‘entourage effect,’ during which different cannabinoids work together to enhance each other’s individual functioning, the cacao- and cannabis-derived cannabinoids cooperatively provide relief.”

Madison Margolin, “Whoopi Goldberg Explains Her Pot-for-PMS Products, Whoopi & Maya,” LA Weekly, June 7, 2016

The term entourage effect was apparently coined by Israeli scientist Raphael Mechoulam in the late 1990s and describes how the various compounds in the cannabis plant “work better together than in isolation.”

familiar letter

“At the time, there had lately emerged a form of written communication known as the ‘familiar letter,’ which was characterized by informal, from-the-heart prose, rather than displays of intellect, reason, and wit.”

Ella Morton, “Letter-Writing Manuals Were the Self-Help Books of the 18th Century,” Atlas Obscura, June 2, 2016

The practice of writing familiar letters emerged in the 18th century, says Atlas Obscura, and along with it manuals on how best to write such letters.

ghost gun

“To do that, his company, Defense Distributed, offers the sale of two very controversial – and legal – items: the firing mechanism and aluminum spine of what’s called a Ghost Gun, a build-it-at-home way to make your own firearm (without serial numbers), and Ghost Gunners, a milling tool that allows any DIY-er to build lower receivers at home.”

Adam Popescu, “Cody Wilson: the man who wants Americans to print their own 3D guns,” The Guardian, June 6, 2016

Because ghost guns are “homemade,” they’re without serial numbers and are therefore untraceable, which often makes them “completely unknown to law enforcement, unless one turns up at a crime scene,” says The Trace. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) call such weapons unfinished receivers.

In 2013, says WIRED, a mass shooting in Santa Monica was attributed to a ghost gun. In 2015, “California state senator Kevin Deleon introduced a bill to ban ghost guns,” which Governor Jerry Brown vetoed.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for some of the most interesting words of the week. The latest: a very long Icelandic word; grave-hopping for fun; to infinity and beyond.

fyrirtækjagripdeildir

“And there was no word for ‘corporate raid’. As that caused so much of our trouble I invented one and it has been accepted into the language: fyrirtækjagripdeildir.”

Brian Oliver, “‘No McDonald’s, no motorway, no army’: Iceland’s evolution recalled,” The Guardian, May 28, 2016

Fyrirtækjagripdeildir translates from Icelandic as “corporate looting.” Check out more delightful Icelandic words and phrases.

graver

“In the shorthand parlance of men and women who collect graveyard experiences, Thornley is what’s known as a ‘graver.’”

Johnette Howard, “Stew Thornley’s macabre adventure: Visiting every dead baseball Hall of Famer’s grave,” ESPN, May 26, 2016

Gravers are people who visit cemeteries for fun, whether to see the final resting places of celebrities, fill in genealogical blanks in one’s own family, or to see the headstones. ESPN profiles a man who for over two decades has been visiting “the graves of every Baseball Hall of Famer.” Gravers might also be called  tombstone tourists or taphophiles.

grolar

“They’re known as pizzlies or grolars, and they’re a fusion of the Arctic white bear and their brown cousins.”

Adam Popescu, “Love in the time of climate change: Grizzlies and polar bears are now mating,” The Washington Post, May 23, 2016

A grolar is a cross between a grizzly and a polar bear, a blend, says The Washington Post, “that’s been turning up more and more in parts of Alaska and Western Canada.” While the two species don’t normally inhabit the same environments, they’ve been meeting and mating as the Arctic warms, the sea ice shrinks, and the tundra expands.

Karman line

“Passengers will be passing what’s known as the Karman line — an imaginary boundary 62 miles above the Earth that signals the beginning of what the industry officially refers to as ‘space’ — but they won’t be going into orbit.”

Sean O’Kane, “Blue Origin will intentionally crash its spaceship during the next test flight,” The Verge, May 26, 2016

The Karman line was named for Hungarian-born American research engineer Theodore von Kármán, “best known for his pioneering work in the use of mathematics and the basic sciences in aeronautics and astronautics.”

longevity myth

“You also get what’s called the longevity myth, which is where people’s imaginations exceed reality.”

Allie Conti, “We Spoke with the Scientist Studying How to Live As Long As Possible,” Vice, May 21, 2016

According to Vice, longevity myths might occur with individuals who, one, don’t have a record of their birth and two, are over 80 as  “after the age of 80, people begin to inflate their age,” while “before 80, people understate their age.”

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for some of the most interesting words of the week. The latest: working 9 to 9; beer to the nth degree; a champion in the dohyō.

9/9/6

“In China, there is a company work culture at startups that’s called 9/9/6. It means that regular work hours for most employees are from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. If you thought Silicon Valley has intense work hours, think again.”

Cyriac Roeding, “After three weeks in China, it’s clear Beijing is Silicon Valley’s only true competitor,” Recode, May 13, 2016

For founders and executives at startups in China, the hours can be even harsher, says Recode: 9/11/6.5, which translates as working from 9 am to 11 pm, six and a half days a week.

extreme beer movement

“Founded in 1996, in what’s generally regarded as the second wave of the craft beer movement…Stone helped develop what’s known as the extreme beer movement – high alcohol, bitter with a pungent hop punch, and using grains that give many of their brews an intense malt flavor.”

Sean Scully, “Beer brings new dimension to Napa County,” Napa Valley Register, May 21, 2016

Extreme beer movement is a term that seems to have originated in the early 2000s. In the Wall Street Journal Guide to Business of Life, extreme beer is described as “a catchword that has sprung up to identify breweries dabbling in beer styles (aged beer, ultra-strong beer, beer made with exotic ingredients) that are far from the everyday lagers like Budweiser, Miller and Coors.”

patten

“Over in Western Europe and England [in the 1300s], people would wear what’s known as a ‘patten,’ and these pattens were effectively platforms made of wood or metal that could be strapped onto a woman’s or man’s shoe to give them a stilt effect while walking outside.”

Rachel Lubitz, “The Truly F*cked Up History of the Platform Shoe,” Mic, May 20, 2016

In case you’re wondering why people in 1300s Europe were wearing patten shoes, according to Mic, it’s because plumbing had yet to be developed, and “human and animal feces frequently lined the streets.” As a result, “pattens were strictly outside shoes that a person could take off before walking inside their own home.”

The word patten comes from the Old French patin, “clog, type of shoe,” which probably comes from pate meaning “paw, foot.”

sandbagger

“In climbing parlance, Lhakpa might be called a sandbagger, somebody who understates her abilities in order to beat expectations.”

Grayson Schaffer, “The Most Successful Female Everest Climber of All Time Is a Housekeeper in Hartford, Connecticut,” Outside, May 10, 2016

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest meaning of sandbag is to hit someone with a sandbag, and then figuratively, to bully or criticize. By 1940, the term was being used in poker to mean “to refrain from raising at the first opportunity in the hope of raising by a greater amount later,” an action which might under-represent a strong hand. By extension, sandbag came to mean to under-represent one’s abilities in any race or competition.

yokozuna

“The final match of the 2016 Haru Basho — one of six professional sumo tournaments held each year — was a day-15 championship-deciding showdown between the sport’s top yokozuna.”

Benjamin Morris, “The Sumo Matchup Centuries In The Making,” FiveThirtyEight, May 13, 2016

The term yokozuna refers to the highest rank in sumo wrestling. FiveThirtyEight says the word translates from Japanese as “horizontal rope,” and is “named after the decorative rope that yokozuna wear during their ring-entering ceremony.”