Continuing the proposals for three-word fill that puzzles seem to have overlooked (at least according to my best resources). I might encourage you to check out the comments on yesterday’s edition, where Ash made a number of interesting suggestions. One of his best happened to be just in time to be today’s first entry.
CVC and CVV basically mean the same thing: they’re those three-number identifiers on the back of your credit card, that one extra layer of security that doesn’t wind up in your browser autofill. As such, they’re pretty important to modern society. (Easy way to remember: “CVC” is used by MasterCard, while “CVV” is used by Visa. I’ve also seen it called “CSC,” but that string already stands for cosecant in trigonometry. You remember trigonometry, right?)
ENM stands for “ethical non-monogamy”—a poly relationship where all parties have agreed to the terms and are doing right by each other, or at least doing their best to do so. I’m glad to see the rise of this term. I’m firmly monogamous myself, but doing love right is important no matter its flavor.
ESH. One of the most popular Reddit subforums is Am I The Asshole?, where people call for advice on their interpersonal conflicts. As the title implies, original posters are often seeking others’ perspective on their actions—Am I being unreasonable? Or is it the person I’m arguing with as irrational as I feel like they are? Its shortened form, “AITA,” has made it into a handful of crosswords.
The answers to the Am-I-The-Asshole question have also become acronyms among users, including YTA (You’re The Asshole), NTA ([You’re] Not The Asshole), and most memorably, ESH… “Everyone Sucks Here.” ESH has applications outside the Reddit community; it can really be used anytime there’s a dispute between two or more parties, and neither or none of them are innocent or all that defensible.
gpd, gph, gpm. These figures stand for gallons per day, gallons per hour, and gallons per minure, and they’re useful in slightly different contexts when describing the transfer of oil and other fuels.
hyd? How you doin’?
K-Ci, along with his brother JoJo, seems like a Nineties artist worth spotlighting a little more. You’ve definitely heard them sing “All My Life” before:
-kun is a Japanese honorific, attached to the names of men the same age or younger than the speaker. (Really, they should have used “Daniel-kun” instead of “Daniel-san” in the original Karate Kid, but too late to do anything about that now.)
MFW stands for my face when… It’s used to post an expression as a reaction to a given situation, whether personal (“MFW my crush starts dancing”) or more general (“MFW I realize this is an election year”). Somewhat similar to TFW (That feeling when).
We’ll pick this up after tomorrow, when I drop the second micross!
Test comment.