buffet flat
n.— «The casual, migratory and unskilled drinkers of the world, along with a scattering of habitual, non-migratory and skilful [sic] drinkers, have found a new haven. It is the buffet flat and the New York police are authority for the statement that there are now about 10,000 of these sheltered retreats in Manhattan and Brooklyn and they are diverting streams of “sucker” money from the night clubs and they constitute a new and baffling factor in the problem of liquor law enforcement.» —“Buffet Flat Solves Many of High Society’s Drinking Problems” by Harvey Anderson in New York City Port Arthur News (Texas) Jan. 9, 1927. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
Aubrey in Waco, Texas, says her mother used to warn the kids against contracting honkus of the bonkus, a fanciful name for a contagious disease. This colloquial term probably comes from the words bonk and konk, meaning “to hit” or...