beat bag
n.— «Deputy Inspector Frank Biehler, commanding officer of the 24th Precinct, said that many of the people still hanging around in doorways and on street corners were undercover police officers. Others, he said, were “simple truants, people in illegal gambling, and kids in the beat bag business,” who sell oregano to unsuspecting people out to buy marijuana.» —“Day After Crack Raid It’s Still Cat And Mouse” by Howard W. French New York Times June 20, 1987. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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...
Ahmed, a native speaker of Arabic who also speaks French, wonders how he should pronounce words from those languages when speaking English. For example, should he model the pronunciation for the name of the writer Kahlil Ghibran the country of Qatar...