green ceiling
n.— «In Mexico, I painted, I read and then got the idea that I could be a writer.…Back home, I was going to face what I call the “green ceiling.” It was the attitude among the older generation of Irish that you shouldn’t aspire to anything too “artsy.” The question was always, “Who do you think you are?’ when the idea of being an artist came up.» —“Novelist Hamill still a reporter” by Bob Hoover Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) June 10, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Diana from Tucson, Arizona, reports that when she was young, her Irish grandmother would chase her and her misbehaving siblings around the house yelling, “You omadhauns!” Also spelled amadán, this word of Celtic origin means...
You may have a favorite word in English, but what about your favorite in another language? The Spanish term ojalá is especially handy for expressing hopefulness and derives from Arabic for “God willing.” In Trinidad, if you want to ask...