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R & B
Streetwise black son of the blues, and unwitting father of a screaming child called rock V roll. The child passed for white, made a quick fortune and promptly forgot its old man. |
R & D
Breezy nickname for Research and Development; an intellectual ghetto within a company, populated by rival gangs of Ph.D.s who carry pocket protectors at all times. Not to be confused with R & B. |
Rabid
Foaming ominously at the mouth, like a mad dog or an activist on either side of the abortion issue. |
Radio
In its primitive days, a magic box that transported listeners to wondrous realms of comedy and imagination; now a source from which we select background noise targeted to our personal market demographics. |
Radio Phone-in Programme
An outlet for the frustrations of average Britons who otherwise might climb to the nearest rooftop and start picking off pedestrians with an airgun. |
Rain Forest
What environmentalists call what remains of what used to be known as the jungle; the vanishing abode of Tarzan, his apes, 2,278,303 exotic species and most of the oxygen on this planet. Make that 2,278,302 exotic species ... 2,278,301 ... |
Rap
A pounding headache set to rhythm; a profane street sermon; the end of music as we know it. |
Rat Race
Popular metaphor used to depict the Darwinian struggle for survival, esp. in the business world; a lifelong marathon in which the laurels go to the fastest and cleverest rats. |
Reactionary
A sentimental curmudgeon for whom the past is perfect, the present tense, and the future extremely conditional. |
Real Estate
A small piece of earth traded as a speculative commodity for centuries after some dead white male had the audacity to claim ownership. Each parcel commands a price based on its perceived value, so that a hundred-acre spruce forest fetches roughly as much as the weed-infested lot next to a video store. |
