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
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...
Answers to our online survey of some 2500 respondents suggest that some 10 percent of English speakers pronounce both as “bolth,” and there’s apparently no regional component to this pronunciation marked by what linguists call an intrusive L. This...