hash
n.— «I served as a boatswains mate aboard the USS Yorktown from 1964-68. We called our underwear “skivvies” and the hard to wash out parts on laundry day were called “hash marks” (After the stripes on uniform sleeves denoting time in service, which are also called this.)» —“Skivvies” by jackalope47 Wordorigins.org Nov. 2, 2002. (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...
How do social media algorithms shape the way we communicate? A new book argues that the competition for clicks is changing the way we speak and write, from the so-called “YouTube accent” to the surprising evolution of the word preppy. Also: A...