Official Dictionary of Unofficial English-Grant-Barrett-0071458042

booster bag

of ‘to go with a date into a wooded or isolated area for the purpose of love-making’; and the trucking sense of ‘to travel on back roads.’ The 1963 citation probably belongs to the latter sense.

1951 Quentin Pope @ Guam, Mariana Islands Chicago Daily Tribune (Dec. 29) “Bungling by U.S. Found in Trust Isles of Pacific,” p. 2 ! The trust territories administration is ordering officials to live as if in a desert island economy. “Boondocking”—raiding of available supplies from wherever they can be held—has official blessing. 1961 Monroe County News (Albia, Iowa) (Mar. 20) “Facts for Hunters,” p. 4 ! The store of outdoor wisdom gathered over 25 years of boondocking and chore-dodging falls into four broad categories. 1962 Bill Dredge L.A. Times (Jan. 14) “Mexican Joy Ride by Camper Unit,” p. 17 ! Time was, not many years ago, when a motorist, bound for boondocking in the wilds of Baja California, said good-buy [sic] to his wife, hugged all the children and plopped a bedroll in the back seat of a war surplus command car. [1963 Deming Headlight (N.M.) (Oct. 31) “Formal Opening of the Lonnie Beyer Jeep Sales & Service” (in advert.), p. 5

! New Willys models provide a dual-purpose vehicle suitable for family or business use, as well as “boondocking.”] 1983 Judy Fossett

Sunday Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Okla.) (Oct. 16) “Mother Left with Pain, Hate” ! They were friends, and on the night she was killed, Paula, Brett Harris and Karen Winfield went “boondocking” along the river in Harris’ Toyota Land Cruiser. 1995 Bill Moeller RVing Basics (Jan. 1), p. 11 ! Staying in a place with no hookups is known as boondocking, primitive camping, or dry camping. 2005 Bill Draper @ Emporia, Kan. Kansas City Star (May 21) “RVers Taking Scenic Route All the Way to Wal-Mart,” (Int.) ! “Boondocking,” also known as primitive camping, is the RVer term for camping without the use of such conveniences as electricity and water. The subject, especially as it pertains to Wal-Mart lots, is a favorite topic among Internet-savvy travelers on such sites as freecamping.com, fulltimerver.com and Woodbury’s rvtravel.com.

booster bag n. a bag, sack, pouch, purse, or box used by a shoplifter to conceal or disguise merchandise. Crime & Prisons. [to boost ‘to steal; to shoplift’ + bag]

1927 L.A. Times (May 21) “Mother Faces Burglary Trial with Daughter,” p. A5 ! Friday the 13th was unlucky for the mother-and-daugh- ter team, according to arresting officers, who said they followed the two on that day in a downtown department store and watched them take...goods. All was stuck in a booster-bag, the officers said, and later wrapped into parcels in the ladies’ rest room and placed in a shopping bag. 1954 Grace Lewis Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.)

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booth capturing

(Aug. 5) “Shoplifting Constant Threat to Stores But Detectives Must Be Very Sure!” p. 1 ! Fact is, she may pick up 12 or 15 different articles and put them in her shopping bag or umbrella or her booster bag on one floor and then go on to the next. A booster bag is a store-label dress or suit box with a panel or slot cut in the side. Cotton batten is put in the bottom, just in case the lifter picks up something heavy. It won’t make a clunk when it drops in. 1984 Ferdie J. Deering Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City) (Apr. 16) “Harvesting Fruits of New Morality” ! Such activities are no more right than the robber with a gun, a shoplifter with a “booster bag,” or a crook making purchases by using other people’s credit cards. 1989 Henry Stancu Toronto Star

(Can.) (July 12) “39 Arrested in Joint Probe of Inter-City Theft Ring,” p. A7 ! During the raids, police seized booster bags worn under women’s dresses to conceal goods shoplifted from stores. “They could get articles as large as fur coats, video recorders, computers, fax machines, 20-piece bone china sets—right under the skirt and out the door.” 2004 Jay Warren WCPO-TV (Cincinatti, Ohio) (Nov. 30) “Mall Security Boosted for Holiday Shopping Season” (Int.) ! “One thing that I look for when I come out here—people coming in with bags, empty bags, almost empty bags, refer to it as a booster bag which is a lining inside the bag but open to guard against the metal detectors,” said Detective “X.”

booth capturing n. the act of seizing and controlling a polling station so that many fraudulent votes may be cast there. India. Politics.

1983 N.Y. Times (June 10) “Gandhi Party Demands New Voting in Kashmir,” p. A5 ! The general secretary of the Congress Party, Malik Mohiuddin, said the National Conference Party had destroyed “the very fiber of the democratic system in the country by its alleged largescale rigging and booth capturing.” 1984 Washington Post (Dec. 25) “Heavy Voting and Violence Mark Indian Elections” ! Police said that the deaths and injuries occurred during clashes between rival parties, police gunfire to break up disturbances and incidents of “booth capturing,” a uniquely South Asian election phenomenon in which armed partisan gangs raid a polling station where an election is closely contested and shoot it out until one party takes command of the election boxes. 2004 Davie Rohde N.Y. Times (Apr. 27) “On New Voting Machine, the Same Old Fraud” (Int.) ! The men had carried out a new version of a storied Indian electoral trick: “booth capturing,” in which armed thugs hired by political parties seize control of a polling place and stuff ballot boxes.

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bootleg

bootleg adj. inferior, unappealing, worthless. Slang.

2001 [Libby] (Musselman Library) (Gettysburg College, Pa.) (Jan. 25) (Int.) ! “You guys need to get new headphones. Most of them are so bootleg! They don’t work and kill my ears. Please.”...“Libby admits that until hearing from you, she’d never used a pair of headphones in the library. Yuck. We’ll replace them. Libby was also puzzled by your choice of words, and had to ask for help with the phrase ‘so bootleg.’ Libby, being a tad on the old-fashioned side, associates bootleg with illegal liquor or Chinese knock-off CDs. She never considered bootleg headphones. So for all of you really un-hip readers, Libby asked a very with-it librarian for help. She defined bootleg as ‘totally skanky.’ ”

2001 [Rajan] Blag Job (July 29) “I’m in Control, Just” (Int.) ! I need to figure out what I want, achieve it, and be satisfied with it—for once. If it happens before the end of August, I won’t end this chapter thinking this was one bootleg summer. 2003 [Jonathan] Wonder Jonathan (June 17) “Major Bitch” (Int.) ! I just checked out that Friendster web site that Oz makes reference to, and I thoroughly don’t understand it. To be able to actually see others’ profiles, you have to invite people who in turn invite other people. Then to actually see anyone else other than yourself, people you invite have to actually join the site themselves. Sorry Oz...that’s bootleg. 2003 [kozmo] Kardoi (Sept. 18) (Int.) ! Erik the winner of the Go Cart racing. and ummmm i forgot who had the slowest car...i think it was Ivan haha the birthday boy got the bootleg car. 2004 [Gangstah_giggles (Giana)] Xanga (Mar. 16) “The Perfect Guy. (Not Really)” (Int.) ! what kind of car does he drive?—whatever just as long as we not rollin in some jacked up ugly ass “bootleg car.” y’enoe it gotta have the sound system and the wheels and errrythang. 2004 [Grady] Grady Rocks

(Sept. 20) “Yup, I’m Still Lazy” (Int.) ! The whole joke is the yin-yang twins and the fact that they’re 100% bootleg. For those of you who don’t know, bootleg is the new word that the cool kids use to describe some that is ghetto in a bad way. For example, a 1986 ford tempo with three rims and a homemade spoiler is bootleg.

boot part y n. the kicking and stomping of a person.

1989 John Snell Oregonian (Nov. 12) “Year Later, Skinhead Still Clings to Beliefs,” p. 1 ! “He hit the ground immediately. After that, we had a little boot party.” A boot party is the term Skinheads use to describe an attack in which a victim is encircled and kicked repeatedly. [1991

Usenet: alt.skinheads (Sept. 25) “Chicago Rally” ! The latest issue of Boot Party Skinzine is out.] 1995 Street Gangs (Jan.), p. 40 ! Casual talk of a “boot party” refers to the fact that the members have attacked someone and used their boots in the assault.... As a Skinhead’s primary weapon, the boots play an important role in this

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botnet

as well as most other assaults. 2005 John Bowers Salt Lake City Weekly (Utah) (Apr. 28) “Cell Survivor” (Int.) ! Inmates throughout the BOP suffer boot-parties on an alarming scale because of this “trick bag.”...A few lumps on my head and a paint job on my eyes is far better than what could happen if I didn’t immediately fight—a boot party from my own people.

boots on the ground n.pl. personnel deployed under military command. Jargon. Military. United States. Boot dates to before World War II as indicating a military recruit or a green enlisted man.

1980 John K. Coole Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Mass.) (Apr. 11) “US Rapid Strike Force: How to Get There First with the Most,” p. 7 ! Many American strategists now argue that even light,

token US land forces—“getting US combat boots on the ground,” as General Warner puts it—would signal to an enemy that the US is physically guarding the area and can only be dislodged at the risk of war. 1996 Dennis J. Reimer @ Washington, D.C. (Congressional Testimony) (Mar. 13) “FY 97 Defense Authorization” ! Our cooperation with “boots on the ground” helps assure their future military and political cooperation while increasing United States influence worldwide. 2004 Judith Scherr Berkeley Daily Planet (Calif.) (Nov. 30) “Berkeley Author Investigates Iraq War Profiteers” (Int.) ! “In the first Gulf War one in 100 ‘boots on the ground,’ as they call it, was a private contractor.” When the U.S. invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003, one in 10 was a private contractor. “Today, as we speak and the U.S. is launching a war in Falluja, one in four ‘boots on the ground’ is a private contractor.”

botnet n. a collection of automated scripts, or bots, that create a small chat-based network; (hence) such a collection intended for malicious or surreptitious uses. Jargon. Technology.

1994 Usenet: alt.irc (Dec. 26) “Re: The No Lag + No Split Alternative”

! There are many files available from the bots on the botnet which can be reached even if the bot is on another network. 2002 [Curve]

DALnet (Jan. 2003) “Just What Is a Botnet?” (Int.) ! The major difference between a bot in a botnet and your common eggdrop or IRC client script bot in a channel is that the botnet variety has been created with a trojan and, almost always, without the knowledge of the person whose computer they are running from. 2004 John Leyden

Register (U.K.) (Apr. 30) “The Illicit Trade in Compromised PCs” (Int.)

! In February German magazine c’t reported how it was able to buy access to infected machines—commonly described in the parlance of spammers as “BotNets”—from virus writers.

37

bougie

bougie n. in volleyball, a hit on the head by the ball. French. Sports. [See the 2001 citation. This entry is unrelated to senses of bougie well-covered elsewhere, such as ‘n., (a contemptuous name for) a black person,’ ‘adj., bourgeois (middle class), especially as an accusation between black Americans,’ the latter having various spellings including bourgie, boojie, and boojy.]

2001 Usenet: rec.sport.volleyball (Mar. 27) “Re: 16.2.3 Clarification Requested” ! Even a very good “candle hit” as we say in french (“une bougie” = “a candle” is a spike which hits an opponents directly in his head...just like gently blowing a candle.... :-)). 2004 Glen Dawkins

Winnipeg Sun (Manitoba, Can.) (July 2) “Digging Up Support” (Int.) !

The band was originally called Bougie after the slang term for getting popped in the head with a volleyball which gives some idea of their commitment to musical excellence.

bouma shape n. a word’s silhouette, recognizable form, or visual impression. Also bouma. Jargon. Science. Technology.

1992 A.W. Senior (Cambridge University Engineering Dept.) (Dec.) “Off-Line Handwriting Recognition: A Review and Experiments” (Int.)

! Taylor & Taylor used these Bouma shapes for a study on the text of their own book and found that the Bouma shape uniquely specified 6953 out of 7848 words in the sample. 1999 Steven Killings Connect: Information Technology at NYU (NYC) (Feb. 12) “Optical Character Recognition” (Int.) ! In visual terms, a word is distinguished by its characters’ relation to the white space surrounding it and the nature of its letter face (for instance, small thin strokes are common to handwriting, and thick short strokes are common to non-serifed print fonts). Psychologists describe this as its “Bouma-shape” (after Dutch psychologist Herman Bouma) in cognition studies. 2001 M. Michele Mulchahey Canadian Journal of History (Aug. 1) “Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading,” vol. 36, no. 2, p. 323 ! Nor have the palaeographers and codicologists ever noted one of the most important lexical consequences of the adoption of minuscule, as opposed to majuscule, as a book script is that it contributed, in conjunction with word separation, to giving each word a distinct image, which modern psychologists call the “Bouma shape,” peculiar to Western writing and a significant aid to silent visual processing. 2002

Hrant H. Papazian Typophile Forums (Sept. 25) “Bouma” (Int.) ! I didn’t really invent the term “bouma”: it’s adapted from the term “Bouma-shape” used by Saenger in his “Space between words”; he in turn claims to have taken it from the work of Taylor & Taylor (although I myself have yet to find any such term used by them), and is based on the Dutch psychologist Herman Bouma who formalized

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break off

empirical research into word-shape-based reading. Professor Bouma himself had never heard of the term (a friend of mine asked him). The only things I can take credit for is making it convenient (a single lc word), and spreading it. 2004 Kevin Larson Microsoft (July) “The Science of Word Recognition” (Int.) ! Some have used the term bouma as a synonym for word shape, though I was unfamiliar with the term. The term bouma appears in Paul Saenger’s 1997 book Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading. There I learned to my chagrin that we recognize words from their word shape and that “Modern psychologists call this image the ‘Bouma shape.’ ”

boy beater n. a ribbed white cotton tank top; a wife beater. Fashion. Slang. United States. [Parallel to the masculine garment, a wife beater.]

2000 Usenet: uk.gay-lesbian-bi (July 7) “Join Today!”

! Perhaps you are butch and just like to sit around in a boy-beater all day drinking beer. 2002 Wearables Business (July 1) “New Products,” p. 74 ! Women’s tank. Just in time for Summer, American Apparel has added four new colors to its ribbed tank style

3308, the Boy Beater. 2004 Bronwyn Jones blogging.la (May 3) “Have It Made” (Int.) ! If you’re in the market for a boy beater (in the parlance of our times) that says “OUTLAW,” I guess you could do worse than Bad Kitty Clothing.

break off v. phr. to freely or gratuitously give something (to someone), especially money or something highly prized; in the form break (someone) off a piece, to give or receive sexual favors. Black English. Hip-Hop. Slang. [Perhaps originating from or reinforced by advertising for the Kit-Kat chocolate candy, which for many years used as a marketing jingle “Break me off a piece of that Kit-Kat bar.”] Usually constructed as a transitive with an indirect object, “break someone off something,” although there exists also the form “break me off” with an unspoken but understood direct object. Occasionally, it is followed by the preposition “with,” perhaps by parallel construction to “hook me up with” ‘to grant me access to (something); to get for me (something difficult to acquire).’

1993 Ice Cube, K-Dee, QDIII Lethal Injection (song) (Dec. 7) “Make It Ruff, Make It Smooth” ! I gots to make a livin’, I’m out to get mo/money, and got mo nuts for yo honey/so come and break me off, this nigga’s walkin’ soft. 1996 Usenet: alt.rap (Feb. 18) “Snoop’s Trial” ! Can anybody break me off with some news on Snoopy’s Murder?

1996 Edward Humes No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of

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break off

Juvenile Court (Mar. 5), p. 59 ! “I told them I just reached down and picked up some of the money sitting there on the floor of the van and said, ‘Break me off.’...What’s wrong with that? Wouldn’t you want to break off some of the money for yourself, too?”...“You think the judge is going to believe anything you say now? Break me off. He’s gonna break you off, all right. Break you right off into prison.” 1997 Jim Rome Show (Jan. 15) “Huge Fax of the Day” in Usenet: rec.collecting

.cards.discuss (Apr. 29, 1999) “Why Stuart Scott Sucks” ! Tell me the scores, don’t break me off a little sumpin, sumpin. Give me information, don’t “bust out with the 411.” 1997 Usenet: rec.gambling

.blackjack (Mar. 21) “Guaranteed 1 Million in Blackjack!” ! Don’t forget when you hit that million bucks to break me off 5 grand. 1998

Usenet: alt.rock-n-roll.metal.death (Oct. 19) “Deadeyesunder Seeks Artist” ! We need someone with some artistic abilities to break us off a nice brutal-ass evil/dark looking death metal logo. none of thise 45 Photoshop filters stuff. 1999 Usenet: ucd.life (Apr. 18) “Re: Battle of the MCs 2000” ! I won’t disgrace myself with my white-boy rhyming skillz, but I think Ola should definetly break us off sumthin. 1999

Usenet: 3dfx.products.voodoo3 (Apr. 21) “Re: John Reynolds, DUDE!”

! Ill trade your ass for a pack of smokes bitch. now break me off a piece of dat ass, bitch! 1999 Usenet: alt.tv.star-trek.voyager (May 21) “Re: This Is Who They Are!” !

that pic. 1999 Usenet: alt.sports.basketball.nba.hou-rockets (June 28) “Re: Rice or Bread?” ! Do you look at your posts before sending them? Perhaps an extra moment or two for proofreading would help you appear more intelligent. Although pushing for Knight is crazy no matter how well you craft your text. Just break us off some punctuation, “G.” 2001 Usenet: alt.seduction.fast (Sept. 6) “MuLtIpLe ChOiCe TeSt” ! At a nightspot, you offer an arousing female a drink and she accepts. You would ideally like to end up having this girl “break you off a piece.” 2003 Franklin White Money for Good (Nov. 15), p. 17

! I’m going to find Rossi before the weekend is over and see if he’ll break me off.... Ain’t no way I’m gonna let that easy money get away.

2004 Lori Bryant-Woolridge Hitts & Mrs. (Jan. 1), p. 110 ! You’re not drawn to him at all? Not one little iota of I’d-like-to-break-me-off-a- piece-of-that buzzing around your head or other, more pertinent parts? 2005 Rob Harvilla East Bay Express (Calif.) (June 1) “Scions of Scion” (Int.) ! I’ve seen DJs roll around in those things, and I think what they do, if you’re willin’, they’ll hook you up on some sort of artist payment plan.... It’s funny; a lot of people figure, “It’s a fuckin’ car company, break us off.” But those are $20,000 cars.

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brekko

breastaurant n. a restaurant that features scantily clad or sexually appealing waitresses. Food & Drink. United States. This term usually refers to the restaurant chain Hooters.

1987 James Hagy Florida Trend (Sept. 1) “How Big Can Hooters Get?” vol. 30, no. 5, p. 80 ! The concept has become so popular that Hooters has spawned a number of restaurants with similar cheesecake formats. Most, like Hooters, can be recognized by their locker room names, such as Knockers and Melons. But none of them has perfected the breastaurant formula like Hooters. 1990 Curtis Krueger St. Petersburg Times (Fla.) (Sept. 30) “Hooters Chain Goes for National Appeal,” p. 1B ! Despite their efforts to attract families, not everyone wants to eat in a “breastaurant.” 2004 Walter Olson Overlawyered (Nov. 23) “Hooters Sues Its Competition” (Int.) ! Trial began last week in a lawsuit filed by Hooters of America against a rival “breastaurant” operator named WingHouse, which also relies on curvy waitresses to sell sports-bar food and drink to a clientele of young men.

brekko n. breakfast. Australia. Food & Drink. United Kingdom. This is a newer version of an old form: brekker or brekkers in the U.K. and brekkie in Australia.

1991 B. Dickins Herald Sun (Australia) (June 22) “Give Me Some Real Tennis” ! What Boris Becker had for brekko, for instance. 1992

Andrew Loudon Daily Mail (London, Eng.) (Aug. 24) “Cola Wars Put Fizz Back in Eldorado,” p. 19 ! If you use fictitious names like Brekko Flakes on a packet of cereal it just doesn’t look right. 1993 R. Gibson Sunday Mail (Australia) (Mar. 21) ! Radio B-105 is turning on a free brekko for any secretary worth her spiral pad at the Brisbane City Travelodge. 1999 Usenet: alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic (Sept. 7) “Re: Florida Supreme Court Questions Admissibility of Electric Chair”

! “Confused? You won’t be after you’ve had your brekko.” “More porridge I am afraid.” “You’re serving porridge AGAIN?” 2002 Derby Evening Telegraph (U.K.) (Oct. 28) “Counting Cars, Sheep and Bats,”

p. 21 ! After this grueling Nazi-like torture, came back, had brekko, then got on the bus and did another day’s work. 2004

[Muckspreader] Natives.co.uk (Jan. 7) “Marmotte Times Issue Five” (Int.) ! If you’re late for work you have to do a whole week of early brekko shifts. 2004 James Kelman You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free (May 1), p. 49 ! Naybody gies ye a fucking el brekko. Ye have to grab this world by the coat-tails. 2004 [Lucy&Luke Relph]

BBC: Get Writing: A Forum Conversation (U.K.) (June 13) “De ladding” (Int.) ! Am going for brekko. Back in half an hour.

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brownfield

brownf ield n. an industrial site, esp. when contaminated; a vacated building lot that has not reverted to a green state. Architecture. Environment. Jargon.

1984 Constance Holden Science (July 13) “Environmentalists Produce National Economic Agenda,” vol. 225, p. 150 ! The report supports modernization of smokestack industries and urges that those that are relocated be kept in “brownfield” areas where they will do less environmental damage and supply jobs in already industrialized regions.

2000 Daniel E. Johnson California Construction Link (Aug. 1) “Brownfield Development: Cleanup of Urban Areas for Re-Use; More Than 5,000 Sites Exist in California; EPA Loans and Grants May Assist Property Owners,” p. 28 ! Known as brownfields, these areas are defined by the USEPA as “abandoned, idled, or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination.” 2004 Jennifer Clare North Brooklyn Community News Greenline (Brooklyn, N.Y.) (Apr. 8-30) “Turning Brownfields Green,” vol. XXIX, p. 3 ! The legislation offers incentives for the public and private redevelopment

of former industrial sites (some are contaminated—also known as brownfields) into new housing and economic development opportunities.

buckaloose adj. unhinged, crazy, out of control, erratic; (of a woman) loose, easy. Colloquial. English-based Creole. Hawaii. United States.

2002 [Alfred Pennyworth] Ultrablognetic (Sept. 22) (Int.) ! da internet is running so slow cuz, it’s makin me all buckaloose. I mean fa real kine I’m gonna break yo face. 2003 Jena Osman Chain 10: translucinacion (Sept. 1), p. 245 ! Wen look like everyting boing come all buckaloose and maybe going get war, ees up to da bruddahs and sistahs who get da cool head, dey da ones gotta say someting for protess da crime and da outrage das going be perpetuated on top a-dem.

2004 [Emily]...a beautiful distraction (June 3) (Int.) ! our hawaiian native is teaching us some of their, as she calls it, “pidgeon slang.” like “i’m bow with my reading.” or “that girl is buckaloose.”

buckle bunny n. a female groupie of rodeo cowboys. Slang. Sports. United States. This term is similar to PUCK BUNNY.

1978 Roger Kahn @ Cody, Wyo. N.Y. Times (July 24) “The Sport of Cowboys,” p. C4 ! “Are there girls,” I said, “who follow rodeo cowboys?” Sundown grinned. “We call them buckle bunnies.” 1988 Sally Jenkins Washington Post (Feb. 23) “Of Prairie Fires and Cowgirl’s Kisses,” p. E4 ! If you don’t know how to do the two-step, a Buckle Bunny (cowboy groupie) will be happy to help you. 2004 Jeannine

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buffet flat

Crooks Milford Daily News (Mass.) (June 10) “Pick Up Lingo to Rope in Good Time” (Int.) ! Buckle bunnies: Rodeo’s version of groupies, women who love to be around rodeo cowboys.

budget dust n. money said to be insignificant when compared to other (planned) expenditures. Money & Finance.

1990 Gene Pentecost @ Franklin, Tenn. USA Today (July 6) “Are You Angry About the Savings and Loan Bailout?” p. 10A ! The regulators should help pay the price by going to jail, having their salaries reduced, or both. This is another burden on the taxpayer. Everybody in Washington is to blame. This isn’t just budget dust, this is big bucks. 1991 Cathy Taylor Orange County Register (Calif.) (Mar. 12) “A Lesson in Budget Dust and Burn Rate,” p. D1 ! Budget dust. A small cash amount relative to the company’s total dollar budget. Many managers are being told to spend less, but if you want to arm wrestle, try this: “Why boss, that program accounts for just budget dust; let’s keep it in.” 1997 Rhonda L. Wickham Cellular Business (Nov. 30) “Budget Dust or Bust” ! During the heat of the bidding process, a few wannabe licensees obviously felt as though their high-dollar bids for spectrum would be justified and add up to mere “budget dust” in the long-term. 2002 Rebecca Cook @ Olympia, Wash. (AP) (Dec. 29) “In State Spending, Hot-Button Items Amount to Mere ‘Budget Dust’ ” ! It seems strange to talk about $30 million here and there as mere budget dust—as the budget writers call it. But in the state’s $23 billion budget, $30 million is a bit like the loose change you find under your sofa cushions. 2005 Lisa Mascaro @ L.A. Orange County Register (Calif.) (June 5) “Despite Budget Woes, MTA Board Dines Well” (Int.) ! Some of the items certainly appear to be extravagant in light of the fact that the agency has consistently run a deficit. And although the relatively small amount may, in the grand scheme of things, be no more than what we refer to as budget dust, it is both symbolic and reflective of what they bring to the table. They’re not very cost-conscious.

buffet f lat n. a speakeasy or other unregulated or illegal entertainment establishment that sells alcohol, usually located in an apartment or home. Crime & Prisons. Food & Drink. Slang. United States.

1911 Chicago Daily Tribune (Jan. 24) “Veteran Gambler Says Vice Grows with Police Aid,” p. 1 ! From Twenty-second street south in Michigan avenue, Wabash avenue, State street, and the cross streets as far south as Thirty-first street is a rich district of the so-called buffet flats. There, too, can be found hundreds of handbooks, gaming houses, and all night saloons of the most vicious character. 1911

Gene Morgan Chicago Daily Tribune (Feb. 19) “It Takes an Out-of-Town

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