Word: argot
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...dubious as the shuttle. The two programs are each other's mirror images. The space station was conceived mainly to give the shuttle a destination, and the shuttle has been kept flying mainly to keep the space station serviced. Three crew members--Expedition Six, in NASA argot--remain aloft on the space station. Probably a Russian rocket will need to go up to bring them home. The wisdom of replacing them seems dubious at best. This second shuttle loss means NASA must be completely restructured--if not abolished and replaced with a new agency with a new mission...
...space-shuttle contingency has been declared," the voice of Mission Control intoned in the arid argot of the space agency. It was an echo of the understated announcement 17 years ago, when the shuttle Challenger consumed itself in an awful fireball, and the stunned NASA narrator was left to declare, "Obviously a major malfunction...
...Sadr, whose power base lies among the poorest Shi'ite communities, especially in Sadr City. Descended from a line of venerated ayatullahs, two of whom were executed by Saddam's regime, al-Sadr has the one thing the Hakim brothers lacked: street cred. He speaks in the rough argot of the slums, and his sermons, usually given after Friday prayers, are delivered in a take-no-prisoners style that appeals to young Shi'ites...
...which stems from the Hokkien liah boh kiew. There's an exhaustive lexicon of such Singlish gems at talkingcock.com, a hugely popular, satirical website that inspired the movie. Its director, Colin Goh, has also published the Coxford Singlish Dictionary, which lovingly chronicles all the comic eccentricities of Singapore's argot. Since its April release, the book has sold over 20,000 copies?an extraordinary feat given that just 1,000 copies will get you on Singapore's Top 10 list. Singlish is especially fashionable these days among Generation Y, in part because it gives uptight Singapore a chance to laugh...
From 1998 to mid-2001, 35 million Chinese lost jobs in the state sector through bankruptcies, downsizing or privatization (called "corporatization" in the argot of this still officially communist land). Some workers have found new jobs in the expanding private sector, but urban unemployment remains high, at more than 8%. The economy grew last year 7.4%, which sounds extremely robust by U.S. standards but is dangerously near the minimum rate needed to create jobs for the tens of millions entering the work force each year or laid off from the slowly shrinking state sector...