ditch-switch
n.— «It also turns out that the pilots on Flight 1549 did not throw the so-called “ditch-switch,” designed to seal the plane’s belly and make it more buoyant after a water landing. Investigators say the pilots were properly working their way down the ditching check-list and simply did not have time to engage the switch before impact.» —“Divers Find Missing U.S. Airways Engine” by Bob Orr in Washington, D.C. CBS News Jan. 21, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Ribbon fall. Gallery forest. You won’t find terms like these in most dictionaries, but they and hundreds like them are discussed by famous writers in the book Home Ground: A Guide to the American Landscape. The book is an intriguing collection...
In White Oleander (Bookshop|Amazon), novelist Janet Fitch touts the value of memorizing poetry with these memorable lines: Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they’ll make your...