retrocessionaire: a reinsurer who assumes risk from another reinsurer Welcome to Obscure Technical Term Week here at Maybe Tomorrow–Probably Not. Today’s word comes from the wonderful (read “horrifying”) world (read “tiny but incredibly powerful market niche”) of reinsurance (read “voodoo”). I don’t pretend to know all that much about reinsurance, primarily because I’m afraid my [...]
warmthiness (n.): the characteristic expressed or emotion projected to imitate warmth for outside observers. Compare WARMTH, TRUTH, TRUTHINESS. Just a quick note to point out that Language Log today identified the use of “warmthiness” in James Wolcott’s Vanity Fair article “The Simple Life: White House Edition.” Wolcott observes that Laura Bush manages never to make [...]
index (n.): a character used to direct particular attention (as to a note or paragraph) and as the seventh in series of the reference marks — also called fist or hand The index or fist was remarkably enough considered a piece of punctuation, standard in typesetting, for a certain period of time — I’ll go [...]
