radium The element radium is a radioactive, silvery-white, alkaline-earth metal with atomic number 88 and the symbol Ra. Its most stable isotope, radium-226 has a half-life of 1,600 years. Radium is particularly toxic in that it is chemically similar to calcium and can deposit in bones, causing long-term exposure to
libel In present day legal parlance, according to Black’s Law Dictionary, a libel is “a defamatory statement expressed in a fixed medium, esp. writing but also a picture, sign, or electronic broadcast.” It is also a verb meaning “to defame (someone) in a permanent medium, esp. in writing.” The word
duke / dukes A duke is the ruler of a duchy or the highest rank of nobility below the sovereign. The word comes from the Anglo-Norman duc, meaning ruler or general, which in turn is from the Latin dux, leader or general. The oldest use of the word in English that anyone has
protactinium The element protactinium is a dense, radioactive, silvery-gray metal in the actinide series with atomic number 91 and the symbol Pa. Due to its rarity and its radioactivity, it has no applications outside of research. The element was first discovered by Kazimierz Fajans and Oswald Helmuth Göhring in 1913, and
yassify / yas To yassify something is to apply beauty filters to a digital image in an over-the-top manner in order to create a humorous result, and often, in a callback to the term’s roots in 1980s Black and LatinX queer culture, to transform the image of man into that of a
gerrymander Political jargon terms often have a short life. Terms terms such as to bork or hanging chad which once briefly dominated the news cycle are now historical footnotes. Gerrymander, however, is one of the most successful political jargon terms of all time, but its survival is somewhat unfair to its
promethium Promethium, a chemical element in the lanthanide series with atomic number 61 and the symbol Pm, may very well be the element with the dubious honor of having the most names attached to it. It is radioactive and extremely rare in nature. Only one isotope of promethium has uses beyond
Calvinball (Recent US Supreme Court decisions have brought this post, originally published on 2 May 2019, to mind.) Calvinball is the name of a fictional sport coined by cartoonist Bill Watterston in his syndicated comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. In the strip, Calvinball is a sport where the participants make up
grog Grog is another name for booze. Originally, it applied specifically to a mix of rum and water, often with added sugar and lime juice, served to sailors in the Royal Navy, and over time it came to be applied to any spirit or beer. The etymology of the word has
stool pigeon In American underworld slang, a stool pigeon is a police informer. The stool is puzzling to most. It is a variant on an older word, stale, meaning a decoy or lure. That word comes from the Old English stæl, meaning place (also the source of our present-day word stall). The
special relationship The Oxford English Dictionary defines the phrase special relationship as “a particularly close relationship between countries, often resulting from shared history, politics, or culture, spec. that of the United Kingdom with the United States.” While that definition is correct as far as it goes, it misses the point that the
Gish gallop A Gish gallop is a rhetorical tactic in which a debater quickly runs through an extended series of falsehoods, misrepresentations, and shoddy arguments that are impossible to refute in the context of the debate format. The term was coined in 1994 by anthropologist Eugenie Scott, then the director of the
praseodymium / neodymium / didymium Praseodymium is a chemical element with atomic number 59 and the symbol Pr. Neodymium has atomic number 60 and the symbol Nd. Both are silvery, malleable metals that are found together in nature, making them twins of a sort. Both are widely used in the production of colored glass and
flap / flip / flop / flip-flop In the midst of his 2004 presidential campaign, Senator John Kerry said of his vote on funding for the war in Iraq, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.” This may be one of the most bald-faced and succinct examples of flip-flopping in American
