Home » Dictionary » Hudson River alligator

Hudson River alligator

Hudson River alligator
 n.— «The quaint wooden pilings you see at the edge of Manhattan, the ones that trace the outlines of long-gone piers, are a hazard in the making. When a storm knocks one of them loose, the resultant floater—a “Hudson River alligator”—becomes a twenty-foot battering ram.» —“Secrets of the Deep” by Christopher Bonanos New York Magazine May 10, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Further reading

To Joner Like Jonah

To joner means to “bring bad luck to” or “jinx.” This term is a corruption of the name Jonah, the biblical figure who initially resisted a divine command. His presence on board a ship supposedly caused a great storm at sea...

Conductor, Punch in the Presence of the Passenjare!

In an article in The Atlantic magazine, humorist Mark Twain quoted a sing-songy bit of doggerel about conductors punching railroad fares that illustrates how colored paper has long been used to encode information. This is part of a complete episode...

Recent posts