dead-man brake
n.— «Cars have been built with brake pedals.…We have built-in hand-braking controls and so-called “dead-man” brake controls.» —“Suggestion for Relocation Of Accelerator Shows Many Plans Tried” by Herbert Chase New York Times Aug. 3, 1941. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In Cockney rhyming slang, apples and pears is a synonym for “stairs,” and dustbin lids means kids. Plus, sniglets are clever coinages for things we don’t already have words for. Any guesses what incogsneeto means? It’s the...
Janet in Montgomery, Alabama, reports that a day after she had surgery on her hand, the wound burst open, and a doctor noted that her wound dehisced. She’s used to hearing dehisce used in botany to mean the splitting of a plant structure to...