flop
v.— «I’m just going to go out and see how they call the game and just play the game.…(Collins) is a real physical player. I just hope they let me get physical back. Usually when I try to get physical back, he flops and they fall for it. I just have to be smart.…He does the same thing that every other big man does —flop.…And the refs feels sorry for him. That’s it. You know that. They’re all the same. They all have their little flop fraternity. A “flopternity” is what I call them. Flop, flop, flop.» —“O’Neal expects New Jersey flops” by Jamey Eisenberg Palm Beach Post (Florida) May 7, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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...
A caller who grew up in Wisconsin says his spouse, who’s from Florida, teases him for such things as pronouncing bagel like “BEG-el” and dagger as “DEG-ger.” They’re just products of his isolect, the regional variants from his particular dialect of...