descanso
n.— «Williams said one of the cars came to rest against a descanso, or roadside cross often put up by family and friends to mark where someone died, usually in a traffic accident.» —“Fiery Crash on I-25 Kills One” by Steve Shoup Albuquerque Journal (N.M.) Aug. 23, 2000. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Mindy from Crescent, Iowa, grew up hearing about Herman, the son of her mother’s fearsome great aunt Julia, referred to as the woods colt. That phrase is a euphemism for “a child born out of wedlock.” Mindy’s mother said there was a man thought to...
Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. Why the definite article...