hotel reporting
n.— «They set him to do hotel reporting. He was a failure as a hotel reporter because the young man employed by The Herald and the young man employed by The Times secured interviews every day with interesting visitors whom he was never able to find. He could not find them because these interesting personages did not exist.…The visitor who told the wondrous tales invariably left on the afternoon train for New York, but his name was on the hotel register as a corroborative detail intended to give verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.» —“George Ade Is Reminiscent About Celebrities” by George Ade New York Times Magazine Jan. 2, 1916. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Imagine telling someone how to get to your home, but without using the name of your street, or any other street within ten miles. Could you do it? We take street names for granted, but these words are useful for far more, like applying for a job or...
If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually fluent? And a couple’s dispute over the word regret: Say you wish you’d been able...