earthquake lights
n.pl.— «Piccardi explained that frictional heating, electron emissions, luminescence resulting from sound, and electrical charge changes that momentarily turn rocks into semiconductors all can result in what he and the U.S. Geological Survey refer to as “earthquake lights.”» —“St. Michael’s Apparition, Earthquake Linked” by Jennifer Viegas Discovery Channel Jan. 9, 2006. (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...
The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining the history of words and phrases. And: have you ever been in a situation where a group makes...