choir
n.— «Britain’s first convicted war criminal was sentenced to a year in prison and dismissed from the army Monday in connection with the death of an Iraqi hotel worker. The victim died of asphyxia after being held in stress positions for two days in sweltering heat. Cpl. Donald Payne specialized in a practice called “the choir,” in which he kicked or punched a group of detainees, trying to make their shrieks of pain sound like a song.» —“Related developments” Star Tribune (Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota) Apr. 30, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A Louisiana listener shares a favorite passage from Laurie Lee’s memoir Cider with Rosie (Bookshop|Amazon), about his boyhood in post-World-War II England. An extract is here and contains the passage:“For the first time in my life I was out of the...
We use the term Milky Way for that glowing arc across the sky. But how people picture it varies from culture to culture. In Sweden, that starry band goes by a name that means “Winter Street,” and in Hawaii, a term for the Milky Way...