The verb "cook" is used in Bolivia, too. In my previous work, we had an IBM Infinity server, also known as the "microwave oven" (microondas), for two reasons: 1) The big black box certainly looked like one, and 2) it was joked that the accounting department did their "cooking" there.
>Hi,
>
>Last night I was watching a TV series (Inspector Morse - UK - excellent!) and at some point in a dialog came the expression:
"he was burning midnight oil", that was translated (in the subtitles) to something like "working late at night".
>
>Later on came the expression:
"cooking the books" that althougt wasn't translated I understood as manipulating the ledger of the company to false numbers.
>
>Is that correct?
>
>BTW there was (is) a band called "Midnight Oil", does their name have something to do with the first above?
>
>Regards,
>
>Fernando
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
