It Pays to Increase Your Jargon Power
With Dr. Egghead

1. de-alerting:

a) the act of turning off an alarm clock
b) what happens when they pour you decaf coffee by mistake
c) what the townspeople were doing the fifth time the little boy cried wolf
d) to remove nuclear weapons from alert status through one or several methods, such as removing warheads from delivery vehicles or pinning switches open to prevent firing of missiles.

2. pit stuffing:

a) a cottony substance used to fill abandoned mine shafts for safety purposes
b) an Italian turkey dressing made from ground olive seeds
c) fluffy material used to fill the center of nuclear weapon designers' plush toy weapons
d) disabling a nuclear warhead by inserting a wire through the tube through which the tritium is injected into the primary so that it fills the hollow portion of the pit and is tangled inside.

3. Y2K:

a) C3PO's younger brother that never made it in acting
b) used as shorthand for "You're Too Kind," among very polite people
c) demographers' standard abbreviation for "Yuppie, 2 Kids," often used in neighborhoods with high baby boomer populations
d) "Year 2000 Problem" (usually "Y2K Problem"), referring to the possible massive disruption in computer-dependent systems, ranging from payment of Social Security checks to banking, to control of nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons, as a result of computer chips and software programs not properly recognizing the date on Jan. 1, 2000.

4. explosive confinement fusion:

a) a type of jazz characterized by guitars that blow up when certain chords are played in crowded bars
b) the result of locking two rabbits in a cage together
c) the phenomenon of tempers flaring when people are jammed too tightly together on a hot bus.
d) rapid compression of a fuel pellet to sufficient temperature and pressure so that light elements are fused together, creating an explosion.

a) when someone's pockets are empty and it is their turn to pay
b) a term to describe stubborn people
c) a term used to describe stock dividends on bankrupt companies
d) a key term in the CTBT negotiations used to describe a test ban in which all tests that have a yield of nuclear explosive energy would be banned. "Zero-yield" was not precisely defined in the treaty, but the negotiating records shows that it should be well below four pounds of TNT equivalent.

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Answers:
1. d
2. d
3. d
4. d
5. d