fobbit
n.— «Those of us who conduct missions “outside the wire’ on a regular basis have come up with a variety of terms to refer to those who remain safe and comfortable on base. The most common one lately has been “Fobbit,” referring to those short, fat, hairy creatures that live in little holes and rarely venture out into the world (see Tolkien for more info). I’ve also seen some units refer to them as FOB Dwellers, with one platoon of Bradleys stenciling the letters FUFD on their back hatches (FU FOB Dweller). Prior to deploying, non-combat troops were usually referred to as REMFs, where RE stood for Rear Echelon (and MF you can guess), but that term seems to have been replaced by Fobbit here.» —“Fobbits and other Iraqi critters” by Steve Smith in FOB Bernstein, Iraq ArmySteve Nov. 12, 2004. (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...
After hearing our conversation about how dictionaries decide on a preferred pronunciation, and specifically about how to pronounce aioli, Vern from San Diego, California, wrote to say that a friend once made fun of him for pronouncing grimace with a...