giggling gear
other.— «“Giggling Gear”—This is a term used in playing a joke on an apprentice who will be sent to the stock room ostensibly to get a part for a machine [sic] being instructed to ask for a “giggling gear,” there being no such thing,and the laugh that the jokers get out of it gives the first part of the term “giggling.”» —“Trade Jargon—Carpet Industry” by Ellis H. Custer in Westchester and Yonkers, N.Y. Lexicon of Trade Jargon Mar. 23, 1938. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
The words cushy, cheeky, and non-starter all began as Britishisms, then hopped across the pond to the United States. A new book examines what happens when British words and phrases migrate into American English. Also, if you speak a language besides...