banana skin
n.— «Italy are a good side—they won two games in the Six Nations and pushed Ireland in the warm-ups and most of them have beaten Scotland before. This, therefore, is not a “banana skin”; it’s what the French call a seizième-final, the round before the last eight, rather like the match we won against Fiji, 22-20, in Sydney in 2003.» —“Sportblog: Five things the Scots must get right” by Gregor Townsend Guardian Unlimited (United Kingdom) Sept. 29, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What kind of book do people ask for most often in prison? Romance novels? No. The Bible? No. The most requested books by far are … dictionaries! A number of volunteer organizations gather and distribute used dictionaries to help inmates with...
Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...