blow a hoolie
v. phr.— «Nine times out of 10, it’s blowing a hoolie out there with high winds and seas.…We’ve had an 86-foot wave, so you’re going from one hazardous environment to another. The men need to have a safe refuge.» —“Safety-First Offshore, Four Years After Disaster” by Jessica Baldwin in Platform Viking B, North Sea AP Nov. 27, 1992. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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...
The phrase don’t worry, it’ll be a pig’s foot in the morning is meant to comfort or reassure a child who’s stubbed her toe or scraped her knee or suffered some other minor injury. This expression is especially common in...