What is vitriol? Vitriol is an old-fashioned name for one of the most dangerous chemicals you can find: sulfuric acid. This substance is incredibly corrosive, meaning it eats away other substances due to chemical reactions. When sulfuric acid meets water, it produces an exothermic reaction, meaning the chemical reaction that occurs when a chemical mixes with water produces heat. Reactions between the two are responsible …
Most of us take our keyboards for granted. If we’re touch typists, we automatically position our fingers above the same eight keys and our muscle memory takes over. We just type! What does QWERTY mean? But our keyboards have an interesting history. Most English language keyboards have a QWERTY layout. And QWERTY isn’t an acronym or neologism. The name is simply the first six characters in …
When someone casually uses a term they assume you understand but don’t, you have a few choices. You can get frustrated, or you can look it up. Financial jargon can be a code of confusing abbreviations and arithmetic. Let’s focus on one of the most common bits of shorthand: “the Dow.” What is the full name of the Dow? The full name for this measure of stock …