code pink
n.— «Key cards get authorized personnel access to where they need to be. All of the nursery staff have a little bear on their ID so you know they’re legitimate. As a last resort, there’s something called “Code Pink,” an alarm system at the nurses station which locks down the whole hospital. No one leaves until the baby is found.» —“Baby security at local hospitals” by Adam Longo WATE-TV (Knoxville, Tennessee) Mar. 10, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Ophelia in Johnson City, Tennessee, wonders about the exclamation her great-grandmother often used when something surprised her: Cat bristle! That may be her own version of a minced oath, although it fits with the idea of how a cat’s tail might look...
Homer in Kingsport, Tennessee, says that when Homer came in after curfew, his dad would say, “You guys have been out swarping, haven’t you?” Swarping is related to a variety of dialect terms in Scotland and Northern England that...