game face
n.— «He slumped in his chair, rested his head on the palm of his extended arm, and glared at the 20 or so mostly black male job seekers who gathered on a recent Monday, the first day of a four-week job-readiness training program.…The men were talking about “game face,” slang for the menacing expression worn by many African-American and Hispanic men who live in inner cities. But many men who wear their game faces on the streets also wear them on interviews and at work.» —“Sometimes the Right Approach Is Putting the Best Face Forward” by Tanya Mohn New York Times May 7, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital is a sensuous, exhilarating meditation about the strangeness of life on a space station, with its mix of tedious tasks and jaw-dropping views. And: a musician who rode the rails in his youth shares the slang he...
Steve, a singer-songwriter from Rock Springs, Wyoming, shares some slang he picked up while months riding the rails and busking. Spanging refers to panhandling, from asking for “spare change.” The term bull refers to a type of security...