The rootless cosmopolitan now had roots for the first time in his life.

ECONOMIST: Barack Obama

She grew weary of the rootless life.

FORBES: Life

Even the prose is weirdly rootless: the multicultural argot of global VIPs who spend their lives at 35, 000 feet.

ECONOMIST: Bagehot: Lessons from 35,000 feet | The

And then there are the engineers themselves, a rootless but engaging brotherhood that travels the world from rack to rack, helping to keep the electronic show on the road, and whose interactions and dealmaking does a lot to shape the geography of the electronic spider's web that now engulfs the planet.

ECONOMIST: How the internet works