| Ain't (verb) | An ungrammatical form of "isn't," sometimes used to emphasize a point although the speaker knows that "isn't" is the correct form.
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| All the Rage (descriptive phrase) | Extremely popular, but the popularity is likely to be transitory.
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| Armada (proper noun) | Historic term for the Spanish navy. Now obsolete.
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| Automatic Pilot (noun) | To be on automatic pilot is to be acting without thinking.
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| Baby Boom (noun) | Any period when more than the statistically predicted number of babies are born. Originally referred to a specific group: those born in the years 1945–1964.
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| Baby Boomers (descriptive phrase) | Americans born in the years 1945 through 1964. An enormous and influential group of people whose large number is attributed to the "boom" in babies that occurred when military personnel, many of whom had been away from home for four or five years, were discharged from military service after the end of World War II.
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| Back to the Drawing Board (descriptive phrase) | To start all over again after having your plan or project turn out to be useless.
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| Bailed Out (descriptive phrase) | To be rescued. It has other colloquial meanings as well, but they do not appear in this book.
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| Bailout (noun) | The action of having been bailed out. (See "Bailed Out")
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| Bear Market (noun) | Stock market dominated by people who are not buying (i.e., are hibernating). Opposite of a bull market, where people are charging ahead vigorously to buy.
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| Bedlam (noun) | Chaotic and apparently disorganized activity. Today the word is not capitalized. A few hundred years ago in England, the noun meant the Hospital of St. Mary's of Bethlehem, an insane asylum. The hospital was not in Bethlehem; it was in London. "Bedlam" was the way "Bethlehem" was pronounced by the English.
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| Bidding (or Bid) (verb sometimes used as a noun) | Has two different meanings. (1) Making an offer, or a series of offers, to compete with others who are making offers. Also the offer itself. (2) Ordering or asking a person to take a specified action.
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| Big Mac (proper noun) | Brand name of a kind of hamburger sold at McDonald's restaurants.
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| Bind (noun) | To "be in a bind" means to be in a situation where one is forced to make a difficult decision one does not want to make—where any decision seems as if it would be wrong, or at least undesirable.
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| Blow It (verb; past tense: blew it) | To do a poor job, to miss an opportunity, to perform unsatisfactorily.
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| Blow Off (verb) | To treat as inconsequential; to deal superficially with something.
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| Blowout (noun) | Serious release of pent-up emotions or of control over one's actions.
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| Booming (adjective) | Being extraordinarily and quickly successful.
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| Botched Up (adjective) | Operated badly; spoiled.
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| Bottleneck (noun) | Situation in which no action can be taken because a large number of people or actions are confronted by a very small opening or opportunity.
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| Brainteaser (noun) | Question or puzzle that intrigues the brain, thus "teasing" it to answer the question or solve the puzzle.
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| Broke (adjective) | (1) To "go broke" or to "be broke" is to become insolvent, to lose all one's money and assets. (2) Usually not as bad as to have gone broke—just to be (hopefully) temporarily out of money or short of funds.
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| Bronco Bull | A bull ridden in a rodeo. The rider's object is to stay on the bull until he wrestles it to the ground or is thrown off. (See also "Rodeo.")
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| Buck Rogers (proper name) | American comic strip character popular in the first three-quarters of the 20th century.
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| Bucks (noun) | American slang for "dollars."
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| Bust (noun) (as in "housing bust") | A sudden decline in the price of an asset. (Opposite of boom)
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| Cachet (noun) | Prestige, distinction, high quality. This word is borrowed from French and is pronounced "ca-SHAY."
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| Catch (noun) | A proviso; an unexpected complication.
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| Caveat (noun) | In English, this noun means "caution" or "warning." It comes from Latin, where it is a whole little sentence: "Let him beware."
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| Center Stage (noun) | A dominant position.
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| Chit (noun) | Type of IOU (which see) or coupon with a designated value that can be turned in toward the purchase or acquisition of some item.
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| Clear-cut (adjective) | Precisely defined.
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| Coffer (noun) | A box or trunk used to hold valuable items; hence, "coffers" has come to mean a vault or other safe storage place to hold money or other valuable items.
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| Coin Flip (noun) | The decision made by flipping, or tossing, a coin after agreeing, with others, or with oneself, to choose one of two alternatives based on which side of the coin is facing up after the flip. (Also see "flipside.")
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| Come Through (verb) | Satisfy someone's demands or expectations.
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| Come Up Short (descriptive phrase) | To be deficient.
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| Corvette (noun) | A type of expensive sports car.
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| Cut and Dried (descriptive phrase) | Simple, obvious, and settled.
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| Decent (adjective) | One of its specialized meanings is "of high quality."
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| Down Pat (descriptive phrase) | To have something down pat is to know it precisely, accurately, and without needing to think about it.
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| Elmo (proper noun) | Character in the television show Sesame Street.
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| Energizer Bunny (noun) | Character in a television commercial for Energizer batteries. Just as the batteries are alleged to do, the Energizer bunny keeps going and going.
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| Esperanto (noun) | An artificial language invented in the 1880s, intended to be "universal." It is based on words from the principal European languages, and the theory was that all speakers of these European languages would effortlessly understand Esperanto. It never had a big following and today is almost unknown.
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| Fake (verb) | To fake is to pretend or deceive; to try to make people believe that you know what you're doing or talking about when you don't know or aren't sure.
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| Fire (verb) | To discharge an employee permanently. It's different from "laying off" an employee, an action taken when a temporary situation makes the employee superfluous but the employer expects to take the employee back when the temporary situation is over.
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| Fit to a T (verb) | Suit perfectly.
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| Fix (verb) | To prepare, as in "fixing a meal." This is only one of the multiplicity of meanings of this verb.
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| Flipside (noun) | The other side of a two-sided object or of a two-sided argument or situation. Origin: In the days before tape and DVD, we used to have large disks, made of vinyl or other material, upon which music was recorded, using both sides of the disk.
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| Forest for the Trees (descriptive phrase) | To be so focused on details that you don't see the overall situation.
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| Form Follows Function (description) | A phrase borrowed from architecture, where it means that the architect determines what a building is to be used for, and then designs the building to meet the demands of that use, or function.
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| Free Lunch (descriptive phrase) | Something you get without paying for it in any way. Usually applied negatively: There is no "free lunch."
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| Front (noun and verb) | Activity undertaken to divert attention from what is.
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| Funky (adjective) | Eccentric in style or manner.
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| Gee (expletive) | Emphatic expression signaling surprise or enthusiasm.
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| Giveaways (noun) | Something, usually valuable, that you confer without receiving anything tangible in return. In this book, it refers to Congress enacting tax cuts that are insignificant to all but people who are already rich.
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| Glitch (noun) | Trivial difficulty.
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| Go-between (noun) | A person or firm that carries out the contact between two people or firms who are not able, or do not wish, to communicate directly with each other.
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| Go-Cart (noun) | A small engine-powered vehicle that is used for racing and recreation.
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| Good and Ready (descriptive phrase) | Really, really ready.
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| Good Cop/Bad Cop (noun) | Alternating mood shifts. It comes from the alleged practice of having two police officers interview a suspect—one officer is kind and coaxing while the other is mean and nasty. This is supposed to make the suspect feel that the nice cop is a safe person to confide in.
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| Good Offices (descriptive phrase) | An expression common in 18th-century England, meaning "services."
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| Gooey (adjective) | Sticky or slimy.
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| Goofed (verb) | Past tense of the verb goof, meaning to make a careless mistake.
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| GOP | This acronym stands for " G rand O ld P arty." The GOP is the Republican political party.
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| Got It Made (descriptive phrase) | Succeeded.
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| Greek (noun) | See "Like Greek."
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| Groucho Marx (proper name) | A famous U.S. comedian (1885–1977).
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| Guns and Butter (descriptive phrase) | Metaphor describing the dilemma whether to devote resources to war or to peace.
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| Guzzle, Guzzler (verb and noun) | Verb: to consume something greedily, wastefully, and rapidly. Noun: an object (or a person) that guzzles.
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| Handout (noun) | Unearned offering (as distinct from a gift); charity.
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| Handy (adjective) | Convenient.
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| Hangover (noun) | The queasy feeling, usually accompanied by a headache, that can afflict a person who has gotten drunk. The feeling can last for hours after the person is no longer actually drunk.
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| Hard Up (adjective) | Seriously worried.
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| Hassle (noun and verb) | Noun: unreasonable obstacle. Verb: to place unreasonable obstacles or arguments in the way of someone.
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| Heat (noun) | Anger, blame, outrage, and pressure to change.
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| High Horse, Getting on Your (descriptive phrase) | Adopting a superior attitude; looking down (from your high horse) on other people's opinions or actions.
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| Hog Bellies (noun) | Commercial term for the part of a pig that becomes bacon and pork chops. (Also called pork bellies.)
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| Hot Air (descriptive phrase) | An empty promise. Also, bragging.
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| How Come (expression) | Why? That is, "How has it come about that . . . ?"
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| IOU (noun) | A nickname applied to a formal acknowledgment of a debt, such as a U.S. Treasury bond. Also an informal but written acknowledgment of a debt. Pronounce the letters and you will hear "I owe you."
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| Iron Curtain (noun) | Imaginary but daunting line between Western Europe and adjacent communist countries. After the political abandonment of Communism in these countries, the Curtain no longer exists.
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| Jolt (noun) | A sudden blow.
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| Jumpstart (verb and noun) | Verb: to give a sudden, sharp impetus to an object or person in order to elicit an immediate response. Noun: the action that elicits an immediate response. A small portable cable device, called "a jumper," can be carried in your car for emergency use if a battery goes dead.
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| Just Say No (admonition) | Flatly refuse. This phrase became common in the 1970s after Nancy Reagan, the wife of the then-president of the United States, popularized it in a campaign against the use of addictive drugs.
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| Klutz (noun) | Awkward, incompetent person.
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| Lag Time (noun) | The time between when you perform an action and the time you see results from having performed the action.
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| Laid Back (adjective) | Casual; calm; free from worry and feelings of pressure.
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| Late Victorian (adjective or noun) | Embodying some concept typical of the late period of Queen Victoria. Also, a person from that period or who acts like someone from that period. (Queen Victoria was queen of England from 1837 to 1901.)
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| Lay Off (verb) | To discharge a worker temporarily.
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| Leads (noun) | Persons or institutions that you think will be interested in whatever you have to sell. Also, the information you have that makes you think someone or something is worth pursuing.
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| Left the Nest (descriptive phrase) | To have left one's parental home, usually because one has grown up and become self-sufficient.
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| Levi's (noun) | Popular brand of jeans.
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| Like Greek (descriptive phrase) | Incomprehensible (because in the United States, classical Greek is considered to be a language that almost no one learns).
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| Limbo (noun) | To be "in limbo" is to be in a place or situation from which there is no escape.
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| Lord Tennyson (proper name) | Alfred Tennyson, 19thcentury English poet who wrote a poem, Ulysses, about the nobility of effort ("To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield").
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| Losing Ground (verb) | Regressing.
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| Lousy (adjective) | Incompetent or distasteful.
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| Make It (verb) | To succeed in doing something; for instance, "make it to the bank" means to get to the bank before it closes.
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| Mall (noun) | Short for "shopping mall." A variety of stores grouped on one piece of land, with ample parking for all the mall's shoppers and often with many amenities such as covered walkways, playgrounds for children, fountains, and so on.
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| MasterCard (proper noun) | Brand name of a widely issued credit card.
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| Medicare (proper noun) | U.S. government health insurance program for people who are disabled or age 65 and over. There is no means test.
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| Mind Your Ps and Qs (expression) | Pay close attention to distinctions. It comes from the similarity of the small printed letters "p" and "q" where the only visual distinction is the location of the downstroke. Also, the letters are right next to each other in our alphabet.
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| Mob (noun) | Organized criminal activity. Also, the group to which organized criminals belong.
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| Mother of Necessity | A witty remark that reverses the terms of a famous saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention."
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| NASDAQ (also sometimes spelled "Nasdaq") (noun) | Stock market operated by the National Association of Securities Dealers. The "AQ" stands for "Automated Quotations."
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| Nature of the Beast (descriptive phrase) | Character of whatever you are describing (need not have anything to do with a "beast").
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| Nerd (noun) | An insignificant and uninteresting person or a person so absorbed in a subject that he or she thinks of nothing else and is therefore boring.
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| Nicholas Apert (proper name) | Nineteenth-century French experimenter who discovered how to preserve food by canning or bottling it.
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| No Way (exclamation) | Emphatic expression denoting refusal, denial, or extreme disapproval.
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| Not to Worry (admonition; also, when hyphenated, used as an adjective) | Don't worry; or, it's nothing to worry about.
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| Off the Books (descriptive phrase) | Not officially recorded (and hence it's an untaxed transaction).
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| Off-the-Cuff (adjective) | A quick, unthinking answer for which the speaker has no valid authority (comes from the alleged practice of writing an abbreviated answer on the cuff of your shirt, to be glanced at during an examination).
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| On Her (His) Own (descriptive phrase) | By herself (himself); without any help.
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| Op-Ed (adjective) | Describes an article that appears on the "op-ed" page of a newspaper, which is OPposite the EDitorial page.
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| Pain, Real (noun) | This real pain is not a real pain; rather, it is something—anything—that gives you a lot of trouble and that you dislike intensely. For instance, some people think balancing a checkbook is a real pain.
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| Park Avenue (noun) | Expensive and fashionable street in New York City.
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| Part and Parcel (noun) | An integral element of a concept, action, or item.
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| Peer Pressure (descriptive phrase) | Push to do what everyone else in your particular group is doing.
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| Penny-Pincher (noun) | Person who is unusually careful with money, sometimes to the point of being stingy.
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| Philharmonic (adjective) | A philharmonic orchestra is an orchestra that specializes in classical music. Sometimes used as a noun, as in "I heard the Philharmonic."
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| Phoenix from the Ashes (descriptive phrase) | Metaphor for coming to life after having been thought to be dead. In ancient Greek mythology, the phoenix was a bird said to (really) rise from the ashes after a fire. (Phoenix, Arizona, was so named because of the hot climate that prevails there.)
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| Pick Up Steam (verb) | As steam pressure increases, the speed of a steam engine increases. When this happens, we say the engine has "picked up steam."
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| Pickle (noun) | Dilemma.
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| Picky (adjective) | Indulging in fine distinctions when making a decision.
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| Pie (noun) | Metaphor for the total amount of a specific item that exists.
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| Piece of Cake (descriptive phrase) | Simple; easy to achieve without much effort or thought.
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| Pinch (noun, used as part of a phrase) | "In a pinch" means in a tough spot; in an emergency; in a situation calling for improvisation.
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| Pitt, (Sir) William (historical figure) | Chief financial officer and prime minister of Britain in the 1780s. He is usually designated "the younger" to distinguish him from his father, who was also a high British government official.
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| Poof! (exclamation) | Spoken emphatically to mean that something has suddenly and inexplicably disappeared.
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| Poorhouse (noun) | Public institution where impoverished individuals were housed. These institutions were purposely dreary and unpleasant. They no longer officially exist, but they have a modern manifestation: shelters for the homeless.
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| Pound (noun) | Unit of British currency.
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| Powers That Be (expression) | People or institutions that have power such that there is nothing one can do to influence those people or institutions—or at least nothing easy.
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| Presto! (exclamation) | Immediately.
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| Ps and Qs | See under Mind.
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| Pub (noun) | Short for "public house," a commercial establishment where alcoholic drinks are served, usually with refreshments and occasionally with light meals.
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| Queen Elizabeth (proper noun) | Here the author means Queen Elizabeth the first (reigned in England from 1558 to 1603).
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| Quip (noun and verb) | Noun: a jocular remark. Verb: to make a jocular remark.
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| Quote (noun) | Seller's statement of what he or she will charge for a good or service.
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| R&D (noun) | Research and development.
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| Rainy Day (noun) | Period when you (hopefully) temporarily have an income shortage.
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| Rainy Day Fund (descriptive phrase) | Money set aside when you are doing well financially—that is, in a financially sunny period—to use in case you have a period when you are doing less well financially—that is, when you run into a financially rainy period.
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| Raise Your Eyebrows (verb) | To express surprise, usually by a facial expression rather than vocally.
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| Red Flag (noun) | A red flag warns you to be very alert to a danger or perceived danger. (Ships in port that are loading fuel or ammunition raise a red flag to signal danger.)
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| Red-Lined (adjective) | On a motor vehicle's tachometer, a red line that warns at what speed an engine's capacity is being strained.
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| Relief (noun) | This term was an informal one, applied specifically to the financial assistance people in the United States received from the government during the Great Depression (1929 until about 1941). It arose because of a government program administered by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) formed to create jobs, and hence to employ people who otherwise would have been unemployed.
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| Ring Up (verb) | Before the introduction of computer-type machines that record each payment a retail customer makes— say at the supermarket or a restaurant—a "cash register" was used. When you pressed the keys representing the amount offered by the customer, a drawer sprang open and a bell rang.
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| Robin Hood (proper name) | Semifictional English adventurer of the 12th or 13th century. He "stole from the rich and gave to the poor."
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| Rock Bottom (noun) | To reach the absolute limit of one's endurance or resources.
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| Rodeo (noun) | Entertainment where a person rides a bull that is wildly trying to throw the rider off. Horses are often exhibited similarly.
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| Rolodex File (noun) | Manual—as opposed to electronic—device for organizing names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-numbers.
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| Rube Goldberg (proper name) | A famous cartoonist whose cartoons depicted complicated methods of doing simple things.
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| Rule of Thumb (descriptive phrase) | An estimate that is quick and easy to make and is reliable enough for rough calculations. Comes from using the space from the tip of your thumb to the thumb's first joint to represent an inch.
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| Saks (proper name) | A midsize department store that sells expensive, fashionable items. There are very few stores in the Saks chain, and Saks stores are considered exclusive.
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| Scab (noun) | Person who takes a job, or continues in a job, even though workers at that firm are on strike.
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| Scrooge (proper name) | Character in Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol, an English story written in the mid 1850s. He was unbelievably miserly and disagreeable (but in the story he reformed).
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| Shivering in Their Sandals (descriptive phrase) | Adaptation of standard English idiom shivering in their shoes, which means being afraid.
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| Shorthand (noun) | Any of several systems of abbreviated writing or writing that substitutes symbols for words and phrases. Shorthand was widely used in business until the introduction of mechanical and electronic devices for transmitting the human voice gradually made shorthand obsolete. Today it means to summarize very briefly or to substitute a short word or phrase for a long description.
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| Show Up (verb) | To put in an appearance, to arrive.
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| Silk Stockings (noun) | Silk stockings for women denoted luxury and extravagance, almost like caviar or pearls. With the development of nylon in 1940, silk stockings for anyone, let alone the queens or factory girls mentioned in this book, joined the dinosaurs in oblivion.
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| Skyrocket (verb and noun) | Verb: to rise suddenly and rapidly. Noun: the type of fireworks that shoot into the sky and explode suddenly in a shower of brilliant sparks.
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| Slow as Molasses (descriptive phrase) | Very slow. Molasses is a thick, sweet syrup made from sugar cane (known as "treacle" in the United Kingdom) that pours with agonizing slowness from its container.
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| Small Potatoes (noun) | An expression meaning insignificant or trivial.
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| Snitch (verb) | To engage in petty theft. (This verb has another meaning, which is to betray a person by divulging a secret about that person. If you do that, you are not only snitching, you are a snitch.)
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| Snowball (verb) | To increase rapidly, like a ball of wet snow that grows and grows when it is rolled rapidly in more wet snow.
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| Spending a Penny (descriptive phrase) | Spending any money at all. Do not confuse with usage in England, where the phrase means to go to the bathroom.
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| Spoils (noun) | Rewards or advantages gained through illegal or unethical activity.
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| Squirrel Away (verb) | To hide or conceal in a handy but secret place (as a squirrel stores nuts).
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| Star Trek (title) | Famous U.S. TV series about life in outer space.
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| Stay on Their Toes (idiom) | To be alert.
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| Steady (noun) | A person to whom you are romantically committed and with whom you spend a lot of time, especially in social activities.
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| Stealth Gains (noun) | Gains that occur unbeknownst to you.
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| Strings Attached (descriptive phrase) | A gift that comes with strings attached comes with certain conditions set forth by the donor.
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| Tacky (adjective) | In very poor taste.
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| Take a Flier (expression) | To take a chance; to undertake a risky action in the hope that you will be lucky.
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| Take Title (verb) | Legal term meaning to acquire ownership.
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| Tea Control (noun) | A method of resolving differences by informal but powerful social mechanisms, such as inviting your opponents to tea and settling matters while passing teacups and plates of cake around.
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| Temp (noun) | Worker whose job is temporary and who accepts the job with that understanding.
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| Tidy (adjective) | Neat, advantageous, profitable. "A tidy sum" is a really nice amount of money that you may not have expected to acquire.
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| Tough (adjective) | Very difficult.
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| Trendy (adjective) | A phenomenon that is slightly ahead of traditional ways and indicates a trend. Something trendy may turn into something traditional, or it may fade away without ever becoming mainstream.
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| Truck (verb) | To exchange one thing for another. This was Adam Smith's definition in 1776 and it is still one of the meanings of the verb.
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| Tune In (verb) | To become familiar with.
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| Turf (noun) | Territory, especially the figurative territory of a firm.
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| Twinkies (noun) | Brand name of an inexpensive small cake.
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| Under-the-Counter (adjective) | Secret or concealed by an unscrupulous person. Also See under the table below.
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| Under the Table (descriptive phrase) | To accept money surreptitiously in order to avoid paying taxes on it or to conceal the income for other reasons. Also, to proffer such money to avoid having it known that you are making a particular deal.
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| Village Watchman (descriptive phrase) | Before modern communication technology, in small communities local news was gathered and reported by an official, the village watchman or town crier, who walked around collecting facts and gossip.
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| Wampum (noun) | String of beads made of polished shells, formerly used by North American Indians as money.
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| Whatever (noun) | Designates an unspecified generic item or action when the speaker wants to let you know that it doesn't matter whether you know the exact item or place.
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| White Elephant (noun) | Property requiring expensive care but yielding little profit; trinket without value to most people but esteemed by a few. There are real white elephants, which are albinos. They are rare and therefore expensive and high-maintenance.
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| Whiz (noun) | An expert.
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| Wild About (descriptive phrase) | Extremely enthusiastic about undertaking a particular action or admiring a particular object or person.
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| Wind Up (descriptive phrase) | To discover that you have reached a particular conclusion or destination.
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| Working Off the Books (descriptive phrase) | Being paid wages or fees that are not reported to the tax or other authorities by either the payer or the payee.
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| World War I (proper noun) | 1914–1918. The United States did not enter until 1917.
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| World War II (proper noun) | 1938–1945. The United States did not enter until 1941.
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| Writ Large (adjective) | Strongly emphasized; defined broadly. ("Writ" is an obsolete form of the word "written.")
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