brass ceiling
n.— «Dunwoody’s daughter, Lt. Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody, 55, has just been tapped by President Bush to take over a new Army command as the first female four-star general in the history of the armed services.…Dunwoody was proud to see his daughter burst through “the brass ceiling,” as service personnel refer to it.» —“Dad proud of daughter in line to be 4-star general” in Englewood, Florida ABC News July 15, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
How do you transform ancient Chinese script for use in the modern age? English uses a keyboard with just 26 letters, but the first Chinese typewriter looked like a small table under a huge disk with more than 4,000 characters. A new book chronicles...
What’s up with ketchup? The shifting history and spelling of the name of this condiment. For centuries, ketchup was a fishy sauce originating in Asia—the tomatoes came only later! Plus, a new book shows what’s lost when a language dies: when there...