bootleg

bootleg
 adj.— «“You guys need to get new headphones. Most of them are so bootleg! They don’t work and kill my ears. Please.”…”Libby admits that until hearing from you, she’d never used a pair of headphones in the library. Yuck. We’ll replace them. Libby was also puzzled by your choice of words, and had to ask for help with the phrase ‘so bootleg.’ Libby, being a tad on the old-fashioned side, associates bootleg with illegal liquor or Chinese knock-off CDs. She never considered bootleg headphones. So for all of you really un-hip readers, Libby asked a very with-it librarian for help. She defined bootleg as ‘totally skanky.’”» —by Libby Musselman Library (Gettysburg College, Pa.) Jan. 25, 2001. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

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Further reading

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The proverb when in Rome, do as the Romans do suggests one should respect local customs and traditions, but also more generally that sometimes it’s better to go along with a group’s consensus than resist and make a fuss. But why in Rome and not in...