(BOON-dog-uhl)

Means: A pointless, wasteful project that keeps people busy and burns money, usually somebody else's.

Etymology: It started as Boy Scout slang in Rochester, New York, in the 1920s. Scoutmaster Robert H. Link is credited with coining it for the braided leather lanyards scouts made around the campfire. Then in 1935 the New York Times reported that New Deal relief workers were being paid to teach "boon doggle" making. Critics pounced, and a campfire craft became the go-to word for government waste.

"Six months, three consultants, and a new logo. That rebrand was a boondoggle."

Wedge design is the folded-paper look that took over sports cars from about 1970 into the mid-'80s: a nose that nearly scrapes the pavement, flat panels, sharp creases, and one straight line rising to a chopped-off tail. Two Italians drove it. Marcello Gandini drew the 1970 Lancia Stratos Zero, just 33 inches tall, which you get into by flipping up the windshield. Then he drew the Lamborghini Countach, the poster on half the bedroom walls of the '80s. Giorgetto Giugiaro gave us the Lotus Esprit and the DeLorean, then took the same crisp angles to everyday things: the Nikon F3 camera, the Seiko chronograph Ripley wears in Aliens, and even a pasta shape, Marille, for Voiello in 1983. The pasta flopped because it cooked unevenly.

That dent in the bottom of a wine bottle is called a punt. It goes back to glassblowers: a hand-blown bottle came off the rod with a lumpy, rounded bottom, and pushing it inward let the bottle stand up without wobbling. It may also help champagne bottles handle all that pressure. What it doesn't do is tell you anything about quality, or cheat you out of wine. The amount on the label is what's inside, dent or no dent.

A mulligan is a lot like a second marriage. It's technically against the rules, every guy over 50 has taken one, and it usually ends up in the same water as the first one.

Rearrange the letters of CARTHORSE into one word. Hint: it's a big group you'd hear, not ride.

Answer in tomorrow's issue.