Scott's Vocab: an interesting list of new vocabulary in the news

Wed Apr 8 22:53:56 UTC 2009

 [image: Schott’s Vocab - A miscellany of modern words and
phrases]<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/> A
miscellany of modern words and phrases
------------------------------
 April 8, 2009, 1:00 pm The Children Left
Behind<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/the-children-left-behind/>

*Children in rural China, left in the care of relatives by their
migrant-worker parents.*

“Like millions of Chinese children, 16-year-old Song Yuedong sees his
parents just once a year,” Agence
France-Presse<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iIdyhuUmhjMQqHNHql3wGRkb105Q>reported.

As China’s army of migrant workers toil to build their nation’s future,
children like Song live with relatives, often knowing their parents only as
voices on the end of a phone.

Although not new, the problem of *liushou ertong* (or *children left behind*)
appears to be getting worse: in 2000, A.F.P. reported, there were 23 million
*liushou ertong*; the most recent figures indicate that the total is now 58
million (although only half of these are missing both parents). As might be
expected, psychological and emotional problems are common among “*left
behind*” children. Experts told A.F.P. that an absence of parental care
leaves many children “vulnerable to violence including rape.”

Now, according to A.F.P., authorities in the eastern Chinese province of
Anhui <http://apps.ah.gov.cn/> “have taken steps to defuse what experts say
is a social time bomb” by introducing measures designed to improve the
prospects of *liushou ertong*. These measures include appointing school
professors as “*interim family heads*,” and offering training to
grandparents so that they can help their grandchildren with homework.

Song Yuedong’s school was the first in Anhui to introduce the scheme. Its
headmaster told A.F.P.:

Before we had a lot of problems with the students. … But since we put the
program in place [2004], the grades of ‘*liushou ertong*’ have gone up and
the problems that we had with them have gone down.

(A recent report by Channel News
Asia<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/eastasia/view/419667/1/.html>suggested
that children who accompanied their migrant-worker parents were
not necessarily better off: “In Beijing, there is an estimated 240,000
children whose parents are migrant workers. Many are unable to attend
school, mostly because their families cannot afford it.”)

------------------------------
April 8, 2009, 9:30 am
Kettling<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/kettling/>

*A controversial strategy of crowd control through containment.*

“For more than seven hours yesterday, police prevented people from leaving
the area of the London G20 demonstrations near the Bank of England,” Duncan
Campbell reported in The
Guardian<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/g20-protests-police-kettling>
.

This is a strategy called the “*kettle*,” which sees protesters herded into
an area and kept there for hours. Its stated aim is to contain a protest in
a small area so it does not spread.

Read more… <http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/kettling/#more-5995>

    -

------------------------------
April 8, 2009, 3:00 am Super-Dense
Crushload<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/super-dense-crushload/>

*An official term for the extreme overcrowding on Mumbai’s commuter trains.*

“Passengers regularly forced to cling limpet-like to the sides of Mumbai’s
rush hour trains because there is no room inside will tell you that as
commutes go, theirs is a killer,” Rhys Blakely reported from India for The
Times of London<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6011777.ece>
:

Officials have coined the term “*super-dense crushload*” to describe how 550
commuters are regularly crammed into a carriage built for 200 – a situation
where up to 16 standing passengers share every square meter of floor space*.

According to Blakely, 4,357 people died on Mumbai’s railways in 2008: the
bulk of those killed were hit by trains while trespassing on the tracks.
But, he noted:

The next biggest portion of deaths – 853, or more than three every working
day – were of passengers who fell (or were pushed) from carriages that
travel at 40mph, have no doors and are often crammed dangerously full.
Another 41 people perished after being bludgeoned by trackside poles while
hanging out of overcrowded trains. Twenty-one were electrocuted to death by
power cables as they sat on the roof — a location often chosen to avoid
paying for tickets that cost only pennies.

Blakely quoted a local news photographer, Indranil Mukherjee, who remained
sanguine about the cost-benefit calculation:

Yes, you will see the occasional dead body . . . but a three-month unlimited
pass only costs about 1,500 rupees [$30].

(* This term is not new, but increasingly newsworthy and inflationary. In
1998, The Indian
Express<http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/ie/daily/19980529/14950634.html>reported
that a
*super-dense crushload* denoted a load of 10–11 people per square meter.)
 ------------------------------
April 7, 2009, 1:00 pm The Big
Ugly<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/the-big-ugly/>

*New York’s $131.8 billion budget.*

A New York Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/opinion/01wed2.html?scp=1&sq=%22the%20big%20ugly%22&st=cse>editorial
observed recently:

Despite all of the talk of shared sacrifice and of not filling in long-term
gaps with short-term federal stimulus dollars, Gov. David Paterson of New
York and other Democratic leaders have produced a
budget<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/nyregion/31albany.html>that
is now up to $131 billion— a whopping $10 billion more than last
year’s. …

Republicans who are now in the minority and had almost no voice in the
secretive budget negotiations are calling it simply: “*The Big Ugly*.”

(This is not the first time that the term “*The Big Ugly*” has been
associated with a New York state budget; in
1990<http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/16/nyregion/albany-legislators-reach-accord-on-1.4-billion-in-taxes-and-fees.html?scp=32&sq=%22the%20big%20ugly%22&st=cse>,
the nickname was applied to a much-debated $1.4 billion tax package.)

------------------------------
April 7, 2009, 9:00 am
Koukouloforoi<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/koukouloforo/>

*A Greek term for hooded militant protesters.*

Almost four months after the fatal police shooting of a teenage boy in
Athens sparked rioting<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/world/europe/09greece.html>across
Greece, the country remains vulnerable to violent dissent, Nicole
Itano reported for The Christian Scientist
Monitor<http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/03/30/amnesty-report-blasts-greek-police/>
:

Banks, offices belonging to political parties, car dealerships, and even
media organizations are attacked, bombed, or burned on a regular basis. A
new term, “*koukouloforoi*” or “the hooded ones,” has entered Greek slang to
describe the perpetrators, who often mask their faces to avoid
identification and protect themselves from police tear gas.

(The Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/world/europe/01greece.html?_r=1&ref=europe>recently
reported that the Greek government had solicited the advice of
Britain’s Scotland Yard “on how to tackle rising crime and extremism.” See
also, €700 Generation<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/e700-generation/>
.)

------------------------------
April 7, 2009, 3:00 am The United
Condom<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/the-united-condom/>

*Nickname bestowed upon the U.K. by the French after the British Home
Secretary “mistakenly” claimed two pornographic movies on expenses.*

Discussing the (inevitably titled) *porngate*
scandal<http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/british-minister-promises-to-pay-for-porn/?scp=1&sq=Jacqui%20SMith%20husband&st=cse>that
had engulfed Jacqui Smith and her husband, The
Daily Mail<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1166266/The-United-Condom-How-Jacqui-Smith-porn-scandal-Britain-laughing-stock-world.html>reported:

“The media in France has dubbed Britain the ‘*United Condom*.’ Daily
newspaper Le Figaro crowed: ‘You couldn’t make it up! With sex, money and
politics, this story is a journalist’s dream.’”

------------------------------
April 6, 2009, 4:00 pm Like Going to a
Spa<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/like-going-to-a-spa/>

*Bizarre analogy for soliciting International Monetary Fund financing, that
some suspect is part of a British de-stigmatization strategy.*

Discussing the possibility that Britain may be forced to seek help from the
International Monetary Fund, Andrew Porter, the political editor of The
Daily Telegraph,
quoted<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/5101950/Britain-should-not-fear-asking-for-IMF-cash.html>an
(unnamed) senior Cabinet member:

Previously a country would only go [to the I.M.F.] if they were in a very
bad state. It was a bit like going to accident and emergency to get urgent
help. … This new facility will not be like that. It is a bit more like
getting well-being care or even *like going to a spa* to recuperate.

Although British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had previously
rejected<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7980375.stm>speculation
about an I.M.F. bailout, a number of commentators claimed that
this latest briefing was part of a strategy to spin public opinion: the
influential Conservative blogger Iain
Dale<http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/04/imf-let-softening-up-process-commence.html>declared
“Let the Softening Up Process Commence!” and in The Spectator,
James Forsyth asked<http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3514431/do-they-really-expect-us-to-believe-this.thtml>“do
they really expect us to believe this?”

------------------------------
April 6, 2009, 11:15 am
Sit-Down-Look<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/sit-down-look/>

*A Nigerian expression meaning to passively observe – now used to describe
the developing world’s quiescent role in the global economic collapse.*

In a recent editorial for the Nigerian paper This
Day<http://allafrica.com/stories/200903300087.html>,
Kennedy Ifeh suggested that the third world had become an impotent bystander
to the global financial crisis:

Developed and emerging economies in Europe, America and Asia seem to have
all abandoned the globalization relic and the promises of hope for mankind
to adopt protectionist policies. World economy has suddenly turned
Keynesian.

Governments are injecting stimulus bailouts and enforcing financial
regulations. Only recently, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner,
unfolded plans that suggests [the] government’s move to nationalize banks.
In all of these, countries of the third world are left in the dark and have
helplessly assumed the status of the popular Nigeria phrase “*sit-down-look*.”
…

In the face of obvious realities, the third world should look inwards and
harness the powers from within towards a strong economic alliance and
convergence of common interest rather than to hope for aids from the
G20<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/group_of_20/index.html>
.

------------------------------
April 6, 2009, 9:00 am Recession
Flu<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/recession-flu/>

*Maladies caused by the economic crisis.*

“Are you sick and tired of the recession? And, more to the point, is the
recession making you sick and tired?” Damian Corless asked in The Irish
Independent<http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/feeling-blue-with-recession-flu-1691917.html>,
“If the answer is yes, chances are you’re suffering from *Recession Flu*.”

*Recession Flu* is an umbrella term that covers a spectrum of disorders
whose symptoms can include panic attacks, insomnia, gastric troubles, high
blood pressure, lethargy, and an overwhelming sense of dread that makes
sufferers just want to sink back under the covers each morning and make the
world go away.

Doctors in Britain say that *Recession Flu* is as real as any textbook
illness and the Royal College of General Practitioners believes it is
building to epidemic proportions.

------------------------------
April 6, 2009, 3:00 am
Twitchhiking<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/twitchhiking/>

*Traveling using transport and accommodation provided (solely) by fellow
Twitterers.* (Twitter + hitchhiking.)

*Twitchhiker <http://twitter.com/twitchhiker>*, Paul Smith,
resolved<http://www.twitchhiker.com/>to “travel as far around the
world as possible in 30 days, relying only on
the goodwill of people using Twitter.”
Starting<http://timesonline.typepad.com/technology/2009/03/twitchiker-makes-it-to-the-other-side-of-the-world-in-30-days.html>in
Newcastle<http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=Newcastle%2C%20England&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl>,
England, Smith made it as far as Stewart
Island<http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=QbH&ei=5THTSezfJI7vlQeNy537Cw&resnum=0&q=Stewart%20Island%2C%20New%20Zealand&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl>,
New Zealand, (just shy of his target destination, Campbell Island) within
the allotted time, and raised £5,000 ($7,200) for a water
charity<http://www.charitywater.org/>.

Smith blogged <http://www.twitchhiker.com/>:

“The *Twitchhiker* project showed that kindness is universal, that the whole
can be infinitely greater than the sum of its parts, and that social media
may begin online but it will converge with the real world whenever and
wherever you let it.”
------------------------------
April 4, 2009, 3:00 am Elsewhere: U.S.P.S — Smiles, Frowns, Upside
Downs<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/elsewhere-usps-smiles-frowns-upside-downs/>

The United States Postal Service <http://www.usps.com/> has published online
a detailed glossary of *postal terms*
[A–G<http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub32/pub32a_g.html>,
H–P <http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub32/pub32h_p.html>,
Q–Z<http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub32/pub32q_z.html>].
Many of these terms are dry and technical (“Auxiliary Service Facility” or
“Remote Encoding Center”), but a few are noteworthy — including the very
splendid distinctions between “accidental deviations from the uniform
alignment of envelopes” — *Smiles, Frowns, and Upside Downs.* Read
more…<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/elsewhere-usps-smiles-frowns-upside-downs/#more-5285>
------------------------------
April 3, 2009, 3:30 pm Ghetto Bird
Hotline<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/ghetto-bird-hotline/>

*Nickname for the L.A.P.D. Air Support Division phone number.*

The Web site LAist<http://laist.com/2009/03/27/how_to_find_out_why_an_lapd_helicop.php>recently
shared with its readers the number to call to discover why an L.A.P.D.
helicopter <http://www.lapdonline.org/air_support_division> is circling
overhead, prompting one commenter to exclaim:

This is awesome you have no idea how many times my girlfriend asks me “why
do you think that helicopter is there?” and now we could finally answer that
question. I’m sitting around waiting for one to start circling to call
the *Ghetto
Bird Hotline*!
------------------------------
April 3, 2009, 10:24 am Why Does He Have To
Shout?<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/why-does-he-have-to-shout/>

*Queen Elizabeth II’s semi-serious rebuke of Silvio Berlusconi.*

A minor diplomatic incident took place at the “family” photo call of
G20<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/group_of_20/index.html>leaders,
when the Queen became irritated at the Italian Prime Minister’s
booming voice. After Berlusconi shouted “Mr. Obama!” just a few feet behind
her, the Queen turned round, raised her hands in exasperation, and asked
“What is it? *Why does he have to shout?*”

Somewhat inevitably Berlusconi was criticized for another
gaffe<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3399427/Silvio-Berlusconi-10-memorable-gaffes.html>,
and the Queen was
described<http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2359115.ece>as
“not amused.” But a spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace played
down<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1166820/We-NOT-offended-Palace-tries-smooth-Queens-Why-does-shout-jibe-Berlusconi.html>the
incident: “It was loud and jolly and very jovial, there were no gaffes
and no offence taken.”
------------------------------
April 3, 2009, 7:00 am The Coping
Classes<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/the-coping-classes/>

*The “law-abiding, hard-working, tax-paying” middle class.*

“Long after the G20 circus has left the capital and the mess has been
cleaned up, there will remain, right across [Britain], a festering
resentment with disgracefully few legitimate outlets for redress,” wrote
Jeff Randall in The Daily
Telegraph<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/5096043/Forget-the-G20-mob-coping-class-fury-is-about-to-reach-boiling-point.html>,
“It is the product of frustration, exploitation and a mounting sense of
betrayal.”

This is not the synthetic indignation of those who would eat the bankers,
but the boiling rage of the United Kingdom’s *coping classes* – law-abiding,
hard-working, tax-paying citizens – who, over the past decade, have
despaired as their country’s sovereignty has been dissipated, its freedoms
compromised and ancient institutions diminished by a tribe of political
pygmies.

------------------------------
April 3, 2009, 3:00 am Fat
Government<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/fat-government/>

*Nickname for Benjamin Netanyahu’s ministry-bloated Israeli government.*

“Benjamin Netanyahu’s<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/benjamin_netanyahu/index.html>
coalition
negotiations<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/world/middleeast/21israel.html>have
rewarded us with many absurdities: Avigdor Lieberman as foreign
minister; Yisrael Beiteinu in charge of the Public Security Ministry; and *the
reverse somersault of Ehud Barak*,” Yossi Verter wrote in
Haaretz<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1074812.html>
.

But we may not have witnessed the grand finale yet: If last night’s
prognoses become reality and we wake up this morning to a cabinet of *29
ministers and six deputy ministers* (for parts of ministries and new
ministries), we will know that this is not the dawn of a new day, and that
nothing has changed.

What Barak and Ariel Sharon did before him, Netanyahu proved he can do more:
more bloated, more wasteful, more hedonistic. Whatever the cost, so long as
the lads are happy. …

In 1996 Netanyahu set up a *slim government* with only 18 ministers. He was
always proud of that, and justifiably so. Because he insisted on the
principle of an efficient and thrifty government, he was dragged into World
War III with Silvan Shalom, who did not get a spot in that cabinet.

Thirteen years later Netanyahu is setting up a *fat government* with lots of
ministries, and only one thing remains unchanged: the fight with Silvan.

(When Avigdor Lieberman became Netanyahu’s first coalition partner some
commentators nicknamed<http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/17/1003789/what-accounts-for-avigdor-liebermans-meteoric-rise>the
emerging government the
*Biberman Administration* — a portmanteau of Netanyahu’s nickname, “Bibi,”
and Lieberman. See also, The Obibi
Effect<http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/the-obibi-effect/>
.)

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