door knocker
n.— «Officer Kushner did not find anyone at home.…Officer Kushner left a “door knocker” at the home requesting that defendant contact him regarding a complaint about the care and feeding of her animals. He also left several telephone messages for her.» —by North Carolina Court of Appeals Calloway v Onderdonk, No. COA02-1076 (Buncombe County) July 1, 2003. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
James in Charlotte, North Carolina, notes that when discussing a newborn baby, he’s heard people say something that sounded like, “That baby ‘woh’ seven pounds, two ounces.” He’s never heard that usage before. The...
Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...