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
Cat hair may be something you brush off, but cat hair is also a slang term that means “money.” In the same way, cat beer isn’t alcoholic — some people use cat beer as a joking term for “milk.” And imagine walking on a...
Have you ever googled your own name and found someone else who goes by the very same moniker? There’s a word for that: googleganger. Plus, the language of hobbyists and enthusiasts: If you’re a beekeeper, perhaps you call yourself a...