clam digger
n.— «“Newcomers especially want to be a part of the community, so they figure we got rules to be called a clam digger,” Mr. Sadler said, using the folksy local term for a native. “They figure you can be a clam digger if you stand on your right foot in front of the diner for two hours.” But clam diggers are born, not made, Mr. Sadler said. Everyone else is relegated to the category of mussel sucker, the island label for nonnatives. Perhaps nowhere else in New York do natives have as strong a sense of themselves as they do on City Island.» —“In a Seafaring Enclave, Mollusks on the Mind” by Jennifer Bleyer in Bronx, New York New York Times May 27, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Imagine telling someone how to get to your home, but without using the name of your street, or any other street within ten miles. Could you do it? We take street names for granted, but these words are useful for far more, like applying for a job or...
Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital is a sensuous, exhilarating meditation about the strangeness of life on a space station, with its mix of tedious tasks and jaw-dropping views. And: a musician who rode the rails in his youth shares the slang he...