Fat Albert
n.— «When Boeing developed the 737 in the late 1960s, some pilots referred to it as Fluf, which stood for Fat Little Ugly Fella. The plane’s wingspan and fuselage length were almost the same, giving the 737 a stubby appearance. It also got the unflattering nickname of Fat Albert, after Bill Cosby’s character.» —“Aerospace Notebook: Latest ‘ugly’ Boeing jet debuts” by James Wallace Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, Washington) Oct. 4, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...
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...