Social Science Questions & Answers

A staycation is a neologism in vogue, where a person or family stays home instead of taking expensive and stressful vacations to exotic locations. It is a new travel word and is very popular what with today’s recession and high prices. It could involve taking day trips in and around the city. Such a vacation could also include activities like …

When a player has no legal moves, it is not possible to proceed further in the game. This results in a stalemate, provided his king is not in check. The game is declared a draw when such a situation arises, no matter what advantage one side has over the other. Normally, when a stalemate happens, there are only a small …

A spoonerism is the interchange of the initial sounds of two words, for example, “he is a boiled sprat”. It is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched. It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner, warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency.

A Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) is an investment fund owned by a government. The funds invested through such funds are usually the proceeds of non-renewable natural resources or a higher return alternative to holding foreign currency. An SWF differs from government funds that invest in their own country as these are usually driven by the desire to direct the economy …

The global slumpometer is a yardstick economists use to measure the severity of the recession in various economies across the world. It takes into account unemployment, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Domestic Income (GDI). To the average person, rising unemployment and pink slips mean a recession. While for many economists, a recession has arrived when there’s a dip in …

It is a fund set aside as a means to repay funds borrowed through a bond issue. The issuer makes periodic payments to a trustee who retires part of the issue by purchasing the bonds in the open market. Rather than the issuer repaying the entire principal of a bond issue on the maturity date, another company buys back a …

A sick-out is concerted action by a group of employees, who call in sick to protest against the company and its policies. It is meant to hold the company to ransom. In ordinary language, it is a strike to show the power they hold over the company’s working. It is a slightly more devious method than taking to the streets …

In poor developing countries, some farmers grow only enough food to feed their families, with a little left over to barter or sell for such things as clothes. This is called subsistence farming. In tropical countries, subsistence farmers clear plots in the forests or savanna and farm them for a few years. When the soil begins to become infertile and …

A shibboleth is a practice of identifying the members of a community or a clan and their social and regional origin. The term originated from the Hebrew language which literally means ‘the part of the plant’s. In modern usage, it is used to solve numerous conflicts between groups speaking different languages of dialects, and is also used to discover hidden …

A salamander is amphibian – an animal that lives both on land and in the water. It is a lizard-like member of a group of back-bones creatures between fish and reptiles. This class includes frogs and toads. Like fish and reptiles, the salamander is cold-blooded. It was anciently believed that the first salamander was born out of the heart of …