Word of the day: caltrop

I’m a word guy. Today I name my first Word of the day: [Caltrop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop). There.

In Swedish: fotangel (foot-anglers?). Luisa told me the Danish word: partisansøm (partisan nail). Danes get cooler words.

Oh, my home country gets a shoutout in the Wikipedia article above:

> Caltrops have been used by criminals in some countries to hinder pursuing police cars, especially in Sweden where they have become “standard procedure” at robberies of valuable transports.

And, my role-playing subculture, too:

> In role-playing games, some players refer to tetrahedral 4-sided dice as “caltrops” because the corners are arranged in a similar manner to a caltrop’s spikes. When stepped on with bare feet, plenty of pain will result.

The exactness! Yes, this truly is the wisdom of crowds.

We also get to know about the discourse of American students’ practical jokes: “seat tacks” are called “ass scorpions” over there.

Also: I marvel at the category name “Area denial weapons”. The word has an interesting mixture of active and passive.