hookah diving
n.— «A submerged Craig Stevens poked and prodded the riverbank mud with a hose. On the surface, his fiancee, Carolyn Decker, alternately played with the couple’s three dogs and tended to their suction dredge—a device that looks like a lawn mower engine floating on pontoons and trailing a metal beaver tail. The 16-horsepower engine provides vacuum power and pumps air through a tube down to Stevens—a method known as “hookah diving.” The dredge’s 6-inch-wide hose (hose size is crucial with these folks) sucks up mud and silt and dumps it onto the sluice—a multistage obstacle course designed to trap and separate every last gold flake from the surrounding muck.» —“It’s a lode on their minds” by Ashraf Khalil Los Angeles Times July 14, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The adjectives canine and feline refer to dogs and cats. But how does English address other groups of animals? Plus, cabin fever has been around much longer than the current pandemic. That restless, antsy, stir-crazy feeling goes back to the days...
Names don’t always mean what you think they mean. Main Street in San Francisco is named after businessman Charles Main, and Snowflake, Arizona, honors two guys named Snow and Flake. Plus, big words for small people: A colorful new book...