This year LSE is celebrating its 130th anniversary, and how it has shaped history and driven change across the world. Much of LSE’s history is linked to the United States, from philanthropic support from the US in LSE’s early days to famous alumni and American directors of the School.

To talk about the LSE’s long and close relationship with the United States, in October 2025, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Michael Cox. Professor Cox is a Founding Director of LSE IDEAS, LSE's foreign policy think tank, and was its Director between 2008 and 2019. He is also Emeritus Professor of International Relations at LSE and has been writing a history of LSE.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.  

Further reading and resources

•	Cox, Michael, John Ikenberry, and Takashi Inoguchi (eds), American Democracy Promotion: Impulses, Strategies, and Impacts (Oxford University Press, 2000)
•	Cox, M., & Stokes, D. (Eds.), US Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press, 2026)
•	Celebrating LSE's 130th anniversary

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey until 2 February 2026. 

•	Fill in our listener survey – it only takes 15 minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1 
•	Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/ballpark-listener-survey-prize-terms-conditions-2025

LSE: The Ballpark | LSE at 130 and the United States with Professor Michael Cox

Melissa in Charlotte, North Carolina, remembers her grandfather would describe something excellent as  better than snuff, but not near as dusty. The snuff in this case refers to finely ground smokeless tobacco. Variants include finer than snuff, not near as dusty and better than snuff, gooder than taters, as well as gooder than taters, better than snuff, and gooder than snuff, sweeter than a Sunday hymn. All of these arose at a time when snuff was regarded as a healthy, fashionable stimulant, an idea echoed in phrases like up to snuff. http://waywordradio.org

1672-Caller-Melissa-Gooder-Than-Snuff

Miley in The Dalles, Oregon, asks about going gunny bags meaning to “break down” or “go haywire.” Her mother uses this expression, but has no idea where she picked it up. The term gunny sack, referring to a bag made of coarse material such as jute, comes from an East Indian term meaning “sack,” so gunny sack is a pleonasm that means “sack sack.” The Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles includes an entry for gunny-bag meaning to “beat out a fire with gunny sacks,” suggesting frantic improvisation. The mystery writer Judith Jance uses the term go gunnybags quite frequently in her work, and since Miley’s mother is a big fan of Jance’s novels, it’s quite possible that’s where she picked up the phrase. http://waywordradio.org

1672-Caller-Miley-Going-Gunny-Bags

Nikki in Charlotte, North Carolina, shares the story of a man who casually told passersby You dropped your pocket, prompting them to check for something that wasn’t there in the first place. That silly saying reminds her of playing pool and trying to distract an opponent about to shoot with Hey, do you breathe in or out when you take your shot? Other “made-you-look” sayings include Your sock is untied and Your epidermis is showing. The folklorists Iona and Peter Opie collect many similar kinds of sayings in their classic volume The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Bookshop|Amazon). http://waywordradio.org

1672-Caller-Nikki-Dropped-Your-Pocket

Knitters are creating temperature blankets, also known as weather blankets, by assigning colors to daily temperatures and stitching them into finished pieces. Makers involved in The Tempestry Project extend the practice by representing the weather from the past in their fiber art, crafting blankets, scarves, and other items that preserve climate records from previous decades. http://waywordradio.org

1672-Intro-Temperature-Blankets

Stefan Fatsis has made a career out of participatory journalism. For his book Word Freak (Bookshop|Amazon) about the world of competitive Scrabble, he became an expert player. For A Few Seconds of Panic. : A 5-Foot-8, 170-Pound, 43-Year-Old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL (Bookshop|Amazon), he trained for a season as a placekicker for the Denver Broncos. So it’s perhaps not surprising that, given his passion for dictionaries, he embedded himself as a lexicographer-in-training at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, writing or revising definitions for such words as microaggression, alt-right, and burkini. He writes about this in UNABRIDGED: The Thrill of (and Threat to) The Modern Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon). http://waywordradio.org

1672-Lex-Bag-UNABRIDGED-Stefan-Fatsis

In the thriller Down Cemetery Road starring Emma Thompson, a character uses the Britishism safe as houses, meaning “quite safe,” an expression thought to derive either from the sturdiness of a house or the sense of real estate as a secure investment. http://waywordradio.org

1672-Safe-As-Houses

A listener named Lita who grew up in Cuba shares her favorite Spanish idiom for “working hard”: sudando tinta, or literally, “sweating ink.” http://waywordradio.org

1672-Sweating-Ink

The Great Passage is an anime about a young man who steps up to take over a project to edit a new dictionary, eventually becoming a full-fledged lexicographer. http://waywordradio.org

1672-The-Great-Passage

Here you can find the audio file of the first round of reflections of the MIND THE DANCE Lab -İstanbul participants. They share their reflections on documentation in general and their perspectives on the digital publication of mindthedance.com For details of the meeting you can visit : www.idocde.net/forums/9/370 and www.idocde.net/folders/86

Reflections on Documentation

def ne