fluorescent tan
n.— «I’ve started to develop the grey pallor typical of the Brits and commonly called a fluorescent tan. I have vague recollections of sunshine and frolicking in the surf, occasionally resurrected from my memory by spiteful antipodean friends who email me about their weekends at Bondi.» —“Paris poodles no match for Homebush sniffer puppies” by Jane Dillon Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Jan. 25, 2007. (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...
Welcome to another A Way with Words newsletter! With any luck, our A Way with Words email messages don’t end up in your spam folder. But did you ever wonder why junk mail is called spam in the first place? There’s a funny story behind this term, and...