green room
n.— «“Green rooms” are not backstage locations where actors relax and apply their make-up: it is the term used for secret meetings of about 25 ministers representing rich nations and poor, each with an advisor whispering in their ear.» —“WTO deals struck in ‘HODs,’ ‘green rooms’” by John Chalmers in Hong Kong Reuters Dec. 17, 2005. (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...