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Spiff
A spiff, or spiv, is slang for an immediate bonus for a sale. Typically, spiffs are paid, either by a manufacturer or employer, directly to a salesperson for selling a ''specific'' product. It is sometimes given as SPIF or SPIFF, a backronym, with invented words to fit the letters. Origin An early reference to a spiff can be found in a slang dictionary of 1859; "The percentage allowed by drapers to their young men when they effect sale of old fashioned or undesirable stock."Oxford English Dictionary (1989) 2nd edition An article in the ''Pall Mall Gazette'' of 1890 on the practices in London shops uses the term: a "spiff" system is usually adopted, spiffs being premiums placed on certain articles, ''not'' of the last fashion, indicated by a marvelous hieroglyphic put on the price ticket. These marks are well known by the assistant, and the almost invisible mystic sign explains why an article, wholly unsuitable, is foisted on the jaded customer as "just the thing."''Pall Mall G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Backronym
A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The word is a portmanteau of ''back'' and ''acronym''. A normal acronym is a word derived from the initial letter(s) of the words of a phrase, such as ''radar'' from "radio detection and ranging". By contrast, a backronym is "an acronym deliberately formed from a phrase whose initial letters spell out a particular word or words, either to create a memorable name or as a fanciful explanation of a word's origin". Many list of fictional espionage organizations, fictional espionage organizations are backronyms, such as SPECTRE (special executive for counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge and extortion) from the ''James Bond'' franchise. For example, the Amber Alert missing-child program was named after Amber Hagerman, a nine-year-old girl w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slang
A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of particular in-groups in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both. The word itself came about in the 18th century and has been defined in multiple ways since its conception, with no single technical usage in linguistics. Etymology of the word ''slang'' In its earliest attested use (1756), the word ''slang'' referred to the vocabulary of "low" or "disreputable" people. By the early nineteenth century, it was no longer exclusively associated with disreputable people, but continued to be applied to usages below the level of standard educated speech. In Scots dialect it meant "talk, chat, gossip", as used by Aberdeen poet William Scott in 1832: "The slang gaed on aboot their war'ly care." In northern English dialect it me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dictionary
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical and stroke for Logogram, logographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, Bilingual dictionary, translation, etc.Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, 2002 It is a Lexicography, lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data. A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a comprehensive range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionarie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Draper
Draper was originally a term for a retailer or wholesaler of cloth that was mainly for clothing. A draper may additionally operate as a cloth merchant or a haberdasher. History Drapers were an important trade guild during the medieval period, when the sellers of cloth operated out of drapers' shops. However the original meaning of the term has now largely fallen out of use. In 1724, Jonathan Swift wrote a series of satirical pamphlets in the guise of a draper called the ''Drapier's Letters''. Historical drapers A number of notable people who have at one time or another worked as drapers include: * Sir Thomas Adams, 1st Baronet (1586–1667/1668), Lord Mayor of the City of London * William Barley (1565?–1614), bookseller and publisher * Norman Birkett * Margaret Bondfield * Thomas Burberry, Founder of fashion brand " Burberry" * Eleanor Coade (1733–1821), successful businesswoman with Coade stone * John Graunt, founder of the science of demography * Antonie van Le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pall Mall Gazette
''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed into '' The Evening Standard'' in 1923. Beginning late in 1868 and continuing at least through the 1880s, a selection or digest of its contents was published as the weekly '' Pall Mall Budget''. History ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' took the name of a fictional newspaper conceived by W. M. Thackeray. Pall Mall is a street in London where many gentlemen's clubs are located, hence Thackeray's description of this imaginary newspaper in his novel '' The History of Pendennis'' (1848–1850): We address ourselves to the higher circles of society: we care not to disown it—''The Pall Mall Gazette'' is written by gentlemen for gentlemen; its conductors speak to the classes in which they live and were born. The field-preacher has his journal, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first edition in 1884, traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, and provides ongoing descriptions of English language usage in its variations around the world. In 1857, work first began on the dictionary, though the first edition was not published until 1884. It began to be published in unbound Serial (literature), fascicles as work continued on the project, under the name of ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society''. In 1895, the title ''The Oxford English Dictionary'' was first used unofficially on the covers of the series, and in 1928 the full dictionary was republished in 10 b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance and personal grooming, refined language and leisurely hobbies. A dandy could be a self-made man both in person and ''persona'', who emulated the aristocratic style of life regardless of his middle-class origin, birth, and background, especially during the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Britain.''dandy'': "One who studies ostentatiously to dress fashionably and elegantly; a fop, an exquisite." (''OED''). Early manifestations of dandyism were ''Le petit-maître'' (the Little Master) and the musk-wearing Muscadin ruffians of the middle-class Thermidorean reaction (1794–1795). Modern dandyism, however, emerged in stratified societies of Europe during the 1790s revolution periods, especially in London and Paris. Within social settings, the dandy cultivated a persona characterized by extreme posed cynicism, or "intellectual dandyism" as defined by Victorian novelist George Meredith; whereas Thom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
