50-state car
n.— «Many of the cars that are produced today are called 50-state cars: they don’t have an EPA version and a California version. In other words, the vehicle meets the strictest standard that’s out there, whether it’s EPA for a certain pollutant, or California for a certain pollutant, and then they sell the same vehicles in all 50 states.» —“Obama’s action gives clean car backers a boost” by Stephanie Hemphill Minnesota Public Radio Jan 26, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Joey from Orono, Minnesota, has been learning Italian and its many idioms, which makes him wonder if there are other languages that can simply be learned in a classroom without input from a larger cultural context of new and evolving expressions...
When she was a child, Chris from Santa Rosa, California, misunderstood the definition of the word vehicle—with amusing results. This is part of a complete episode.
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