headache beam
n.— «Each set of steel posts holds up another length of steel that spans Weber Street. Warning signs announce the height restriction. If the signs are ignored, trucks that are too tall will hit the steel and, the idea goes, stop before they collide with the formwork. And the name for the trusty crossbar? Engineers call it a “headache beam.”» —“His interest in world affairs never ‘flags’” by Christian Aagaard Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Ontario, Canada) Mar. 29, 1999. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people disagreed over the best word to use when answering the phone. Alexander Graham Bell suggested answering with ahoy! but Thomas Edison was partial to hello! A fascinating new book about...
The edge of the Grand Canyon. A remote mountaintop. A medieval cathedral. Some places are so mystical you feel like you’re close to another dimension of space and time. There’s a term for such locales: thin places. And: did you ever go...