barbecue stopper
n.— «Is housing affordability the new barbeque stopper? After yesterday’s figures confirming that housing prices are getting further and further out of many people’s reach, moves are gathering pace to set up an inquiry into the issue.» —“Federal Cabinet discussing the problem of housing affordability” by Catherine McGrath Australian Broadcasting Corporation July 29, 2003. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining the history of words and phrases. And: have you ever been in a situation where a group makes...