jam
n.— «The Friars certainly aren’t looking for Irwin to provide 10 goals a year, anchor the power play and rush the puck from end to end. What they are looking for is that word that floats around the catacombs of Schneider Arena like a biblical buzzword: jam. “Jam” measures the intangibles a defenseman brings to the game on a nightly basis. It measures grit and toughness and nastiness and responsibility. It measures speed and pop and playing the body.» —“PC’s Irwin turns the page” by Travis Barrett The Call (Woonsocket, R.I.) Oct. 15, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
How do social media algorithms shape the way we communicate? A new book argues that the competition for clicks is changing the way we speak and write, from the so-called “YouTube accent” to the surprising evolution of the word preppy. Also: A...