handbags at ten paces
n.— «Then a scuffle broke out between Brentford’s Bates and Albion’s Bradley. “Handbags at 10 paces,” said Bobby Gould, Albion’s manager, with a glint in his eye.» —“Griffin Park statisticians sad to find that you cannot keep a Goodman down” by Neil Robinson Guardian (U.K.) Oct. 21, 1991. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The word dezzick is defined in an 1875 dictionary of the Sussex dialect as “a day’s work.” This is part of a complete episode.
Related
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...