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Entertainment Industry
A vast network of business empires whose role is to divert us as society crumbles, and to accelerate the crumbling so that we require more diversion. Comparable to the band that played aboard the Titanic, except that in this case they've also supplied the iceberg. |
Entrepreneur
A professional opportunist; one who satisfies his own material cravings by catering to those of the public. |
Envelope, Pushing the (U.S. slang)
A slow, deliberate and continuous erosion of genteel media taboos, with no end in sight: a mild expletive here, an exposed buttock there . . . then a harsher expletive and two exposed buttocks, not necessarily from the same individual . . . then images of bare-buttocked teenagers using expletives in the presence of nuns . . . nuns in their underwear ... naked nuns ... naked dead nuns decapitated on live TV ... as we sit on our sofas and pass the nachos. |
Erogenous Zone
By current reckoning, any region of the human topography with the possible exception of the elbows. |
Erudite
Exhibiting a degree of book learning fatal to success in any business or romantic enterprise. |
ESP
The unexplained power of certain finely tuned individuals to receive radio signals from beyond the usual broadcasting range, often including tomorrow's programmes; unfortunately they never seem to catch the racing results or the stock market reports. |
Espresso
Eurocoffee; a dense brown beverage served in doll-house cups to fashionable weekend bohemians. |
Establishment
The legitimate mafia that runs any society; where radical souls go when they die or receive an offer too good to refuse. |
Ethics
An unspoken code of decency that once governed most business and professional transactions, at least theoretically; now a fluctuating commodity that declines in direct proportion to the amount of money at stake. |
Ethnic Group
An extended family that bickers with its neighbours and occasionally invades their turf to shed a little neighbourly blood; not to be confused with street gang. In multinational societies that encourage cross-breeding, the old ethnic groups are giving way to newer, more cohesive (and even more identifiable) ones; e.g., feminists, fundamentalists, gays, vegetarians, yuppies, academics, metalheads, direct-marketing professionals, witches, bikers, bodybuilders, Rotarians, rock climbers, New Agers, Mormons, mathematicians and the U.S. Marines. Of all the above groups, only the vegetarians and the yuppies have established their own distinctive cuisines. |
