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al-in-chgo's definitions

horseplay

Roughousing, sometimes mock-wrestling, usually between two boys of similar age. "Horseplay" at first glance looks like actual fighting or wrestling until the more playful "fooling around" element become visible, but horseplay sometimes can deteriorate into real fighting.

A Midwestern urban regionalism means the same but includes a "get your back" connotation: grabass. No one considers that homoerotic.
"I told you, boys, no horseplay standing in line. You're not getting into the theater if you don't stop fooling around like that."
by al-in-chgo August 18, 2010
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Pozzie

A recent definition for "Pozzie" is slang for an affirmative vote for the query that appears alongside every Amazon amateur review:

"Was this review helpful to you? YES/NO."

A healthy and growing number of "Pozzies" are customarily thought to enhance one's competitive standing in Amazon rankings.
"Good Lord! I picked up three Pozzies yesterday on my review of LIFE AMONG THE SAVAGES."

"So people are still reading Shirley Jackson? Good."
by al-in-chgo June 4, 2013
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economic moat

"Economic moat" is a term coined by investor Warren Buffet. It means how susceptible a company is to competition by other companies. Coca-Cola and Phillip Morris (Marlboro cigarettes) are companies with wide economic moats because of the popularity and consumer loyalty of their marquee brands. Boeing has a narrow but deep economic moat because its 777 and 787 aircraft are not subject to immediate displacement, but companies like Airbus and Bombardier could play catch-up over the course of several years by developing similar models that would threaten their primacy. That would close the moat.
-- "Give me an example of a company with a wide economic moat."

-- "The local water company, because no competitor can rush right in with a distribution system (pipes)."

-- "Besides, who else is gonna fill that moat? lol."
by al-in-chgo May 3, 2013
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Mutual Fund

Typically a Mutual Fund is an investment fund aimed at individual investors sponsored by an investment (or "mutual fund") house like Fidelity, Vanguard or T. Rowe Price. Each fund holds a "market basket" of stocks or bonds and individual investors buy into the fund by buying a share at "Net Asset Value," which is the total worth of the fund's holdings, calculated every day, divided by the number of shares outstanding. In other words, a mutual fund whose portfolio (value of all holdings) is worth a million dollars that has a hundred thousand shares outstanding will value those shares at ten dollars apiece. A typical stock-based mutual fund can earn its investors money in three ways: the dividends and capital gains that stocks pay out, and possible appreciation of the fund value per share.

For an individual investor, the advantage of owning a mutual fund is that s/he achieves diversity -- mutual funds own more than fifty stocks, on average -- that could not be achieved by buying a typical hundred shares of stock in only a few corporations. The disadvantages of such funds are that the "load" (sales commission) involved in buying or selling such funds can be considerable, and all funds incur some sort of service fees; that's how the investment house earns its money. Also, no "equity" or stock-based investment is guaranteed.
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"My broker wants me to buy shares in something called an "open-end fund" but I don't know what that means."

"That's just a way to describe the majority of mutual funds, which remain open to all new investors who have the money to invest in them."

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by al-in-chgo March 25, 2010
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UCLA

1. Abbreviation for University of California at Los Angeles.

2. Upper Corner of Lower Abingdon, an irreverent nickname for Viginia Highlands Community College (Abingdon, Virginia) in the southwestern part of the state near Bristol.
"I swear, half the junior faculty at UCLA are freakin' Marxists."

(works for either school!)
by al-in-chgo February 23, 2010
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jagoff

"Jagoff" (sometimes "jag-off") seems to have originated in Pittsburgh but is also recognized in the Midwest as slang for an inept, feckless, contemptible, or generally worthless person, a loser, a "schlemiel."

The term is almost certainly derived from the verb "jack off" (through noun "jack-off") as in "masturbate," but somewhat like the British use of "wanker," it is usually not a direct comment on self-pleasuring, but more of a general term of contempt or deliberate abuse. Like "wanker," "jagoff" is somewhat vulgar and not to be used lightly, and avoided in cultivated speech, but is recognized by all in the regions in which it has currency.

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The book KILLER CLOWN relates that John Wayne Gacy became especially flustered or angry when called a "jagoff." So the police deliberately used that term to throw him off-balance during interrogation.

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by al-in-chgo August 18, 2010
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shaggy dog story

A long, convoluted anecdote, often told simply to result in a sentence that consists almost entirely of puns.

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One classic shaggy dog story involves a man named Hugh who is out to stop a couple of monks from growing flowers for money:

"Remember Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars."

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by al-in-chgo March 13, 2010
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