Americanisms

What does "bootstrapping " mean?

and "sandbagging"

we hear these all the time on american tv shows but what do they mean?

bootstrap-To promote and develop by use of one's own initiative and work without reliance on outside help: "We've bootstrapped our way back with aggressive tourism and recruiting high tech industries"

Sandbag-Slang.
To treat severely or unjustly.
To force by crude means; coerce: sandbagged us into cleaning up their mess.
To downplay or misrepresent one's ability in a game or activity in order to deceive (someone), especially in gambling: sandbagged the pool player by playing poorly in the first game when stakes were low.
v.intr. Slang.
To downplay or misrepresent one's ability in order to deceive someone, especially in gambling.

In games and adversarial settings, to "sandbag" is to intentionally understate one's strength, with the intention of deceiving one's opponents into overreaching. The sandbagger can then reveal a hidden strength to take the opponent by surprise.

The usage has been noted in Demolition Derby,when drivers refuse to be aggressive and/or pretend to have mechanical problems until the last two or three cars are running then their car will start running just fine and/or they become more aggressive; poker, in which a player with a strong hand bets small amounts to convince opponents to stay in the game, and in golf, where a "sandbagger" is someone who misrepresents his handicap to gain an advantage over other players.

Similarly, "sandbagging" is also regularly used in law to refer to the process of concealing winning arguments for as long as possible, to prevent the opposing attorney from preparing effectively to counter them. Rules of evidence and procedure often require early disclosure of certain kinds of arguments to prevent unfair sandbagging.