joint rag
n.— «Magazines produced by prisoners are called “joint rags.”» —“A convict’s look at life on the inside” in Carleton University Carleton Newsroom (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) July 21, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Daniel Mendelsohn is a widely acclaimed author, critic, classicist, and professor at Bard College. A few years ago, when he was teaching an undergraduate seminar on The Odyssey (Bookshop|Amazon) his 81-year-old father, Jay, decided to sit in on the...
Katie in Kalamazoo, Michigan, wonders about the expression throw the book at, meaning to “try every means possible.” Did it originally involve literally throwing books? It’s just a metaphor in which the book refers to “the criminal code.” In the...