gumba
n.— «Gumba—an Italian.» —“Jargon From Bricklayers, Masons and Plasterers International Union of America, Local 37, 389 East 154th St.” in New York City Lexicon of Trade Jargon , 1938-39. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Sigrin writes from Albany, New York, that she misheard our earlier conversation about the expression shaving yak hair meaning “performing a monotonous, tedious task.” At first she thought we said shaving gnat hair, which she figures is...
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...