dipstick survey
n.— «He said agents will even check the amount of gasoline in some fuel storage tanks. “We call it the dipstick survey,” he added.» —“Living Cost Council Opens Nationwide Oil Industry Probe” in Washington, D.C. Los Angeles Times July 11, 1973. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Aaron in Los Angeles, California, notes while using public transit in Britain he and other passengers were instructed to alight from the front, meaning “exit the car from the front.” Alight comes from an Old English word alihtan, literally, to...