big dance
n.— «[Jim] Valvano was not totally disappointed. “I feel we deserve a spot in the N.C.A.A. tournament next week,” he said. “I think it would be a shame with 22 victories not to be invited to the big dance.”» —“Virginia Victor—N. Carolina Wins” by Gordon S. White Jr. New York Times Mar. 7, 1982. (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...
Our conversation about using natural objects such as rocks, driftwood, or antlers, as decoration prompted a Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, beachcomber to suggest that like beachcombing, searching for such items in the woods might be described as...