jitterbug
v.— «“How can you stop the fighting?” The question puzzles Vincent. He cannot imagine a world in which there is no such “jitterbugging.”…He has been “jitterbugging” since he was about 13 and he is 17 now. But he says he does not enjoy it.» —“Youth Gang Members Tell Of Lives, Hates and Fears” by Harrison E. Salisbury in New York City New York Times Mar. 25, 1958. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
When Marilyn from Boston, Massachusetts, used the expression Them’s the berries! with neighbors in her hometown of nearby Arlington, Massachusetts, she was surprised they were unfamiliar with it. The phrase means something like “That’s...
Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. Why the definite article...