Word: jargoning
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...roar of the crowd at Churchill Downs when it's neck and neck in the home stretch of the Kentucky Derby. The participants are dressed like stockroom clerks in brightly colored cloth jackets, and they are flashing elaborate hand signals to each other and yelling phrases in a jargon all their own. "Even 17 D's!" cries one exasperated figure as he elbows for room. Another day of seeking fortunes has begun at the 130-year-old Chicago Board of Trade, where the tension, the gambles, the losses and the gains can make the action at Las Vegas...
There was plenty of rheum at the top. During the coal strike, White House Press Secretary Jody Powell discussed hardships in the "ECAR region." When reporters asked about the acronym, Powell blurted, "That is a little bureaucratic jargon I picked up. I don't know what it means." He and others learned that the acronym stands for East Central Reliability Council, a group of utility companies. They were to learn more from Representative Gerry Studds of Massachusetts, who wrote his constituents: "Air Force to do EIS on PAVE PAWS." Translation: there was to be an environmental impact statement about...
Space officials cannot tell precisely when the "random reentry" (as NASA jargon has it) will occur. Best estimate: some time between mid-1979 and mid-1980. They do know that most of the space station will burn up in the atmosphere. But about one-third of the station will rain down in a shower of some 500 fragments along a track up to 6,440 km (4,000 miles) long and 160 km (100 miles) wide. Its location: somewhere in a broad, globe-girdling belt as far north as Newfoundland and as far south as the tip of South America...
...study on football as a homosexual ceremony [Nov. 13], Mr. Dundes argues that the jargon of football-e.g., score, down, popping-is erotic. He apparently assumes that such words were borrowed from sexual lingo. Actually, these terms were used by football players and fans long before they became part of our sexual-banter...
Closer compatibility. With each NATO member equipping its own armed forces, the alliance contains a myriad of incompatible weapons systems. While nationalistic pride will probably continue to prevent full standardization, there have been gains in what NATO jargon terms interoperability. Two years ago, for example, few of the airbases in NATO countries could service any but their own warplanes. By next year, most bases will be able to accommodate all NATO aircraft. This is being achieved through extensive training of ground crews, stocking bases with a wide range of spare parts and ammunition and doing such deceptively simple things...