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
Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. Why the definite article...
Floordrobe is the new word for an old habit: piling your clothes on the floor instead of putting them away. The Oxford English Dictionary recently added an entry for it, defining floordrobe as “an untidy heap of discarded clothing left on the floor...