cultural literacy 41 Flashcards
branch water
plain water, especially when mixed with liquor
to jawbone
to speak forcefully and persuasively; to cajole
Whip Inflation Now (WIN)
anti-inflation campaign introduced by Ford in 1974, meant to be grassroots
Dunning-Kruger effect
believing oneself to be an expert on a subject after learning just a little bit (a cognitive bias)
entrechat
ballet jump in which dancer crosses feet several times in midair
Voight-Kampff test
the test in Blade Runner to detect if humanoid is human or android
scapegrace
rascal, rogue
damask
woven and patterned silk fabric
random walk
mathematical object that describes a path that consists of a succession of random steps on some mathematical space
paddock fence
horse fence
stanchion
bar or beam acting as a barrier
Boulwarism
“take-it-or-leave-it” negotiating tactic
pill (person)
an unpleasant, unsavory, or difficult person
Krio
English creole spoken in Sierra Leone
salad days
one’s youth
onco (etym.)
Gr. for “mass” or “tumor”
Lancegate
banking scandal involving Carter’s director of Office of Budget Management in 1977
potassium cyanide
suicide pill that inhibits cellular respiration
Avignon Papacy
reign of 7 successive popes in Avignon from 1309 to 1376
“Babylonian Captivity”
another name for the Avignon Papacy
Western Schism
period from 1378 to 1417 when 2 and one point even 3 different men claimed to be Pope
ex opere operato
“from the work performed” (describing the efficacy of a sacrament administered by a priest; a principle refuting the heresy of Donatism)
exigence
(not “exigency”): rhetorical term for appeal to urgency
wrap party
cast party at the end of filming a movie or a TV season
archetypal criticism
literary criticism propounded by Northrop Frye
etymology of “meiosis”
from Greek “to make smaller”
formica (insect)
wood ant
formica
laminated synthetic material
working for scale
minimum wage, i.e. at the cheapest rate possible
WATS
wide area telephone service
Zenith number
predecessor to 800 number, usually published by businesses for customers to use at a special rate
Henry Classification system
fingerprint classification system that used common features of fingerprints to organize records in a way that allowed one-to-many searching
sodium pentathol
truth serum
chloroform
drug that knocks sb out
“Misty”
jazz standard (“Helpless as a kitten up a tree..”)
butterfly flick
a fellatio technique
butterfly kiss
fluttering of an eyelash against someone else’s skin or eyelash
check kiting
using checks from two different accounts to cover each other, as a way of either “paper hanging” or “playing the float”
paper hanging
check kiting with no intention to cover the 2 checks
playing the float
check kiting that defers covering the 2 checks until paydaya
