devil day
n.— «Thursdays and Fridays are when F-1 inmates order and receive their week’s supply of snacks from the canteen. These are the tensest days, Les Farrar has learned in his seven months in the cage. Inmates call them devil days. Those who have run out of supplies are looking around to see who hasn’t. They’re looking—everyone’s eyes are always darting in jail—to see who has stepped away from his bed. Sometimes, on devil days, they don’t even care about that. They just come up and demand.» —“Hard Time: Inside Richmond’s Jail” by David Ress Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia) Dec. 17, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Jane Alberdeston is a poet who lives in Norfolk, Virginia, but she’s originally from Puerto Rico, and notes that in the capital of Puerto Rico, San Juan, there’s a famous statue of Christopher Columbus with his finger pointing toward the horizon. In...
Rob and Andrea in Wilmington, Delaware, ask about a word they associate with southern West Virginia. It’s a word for something you “put on” bad behavior to shut it down, and it sounds like it’d be spelled something like quieenus. Their word is...