Kelly day

Kelly day
 n.— «The proposal that fire fighters be given every 16th day off was made to the city council.…The request for Kelly days, for which Cedar Rapids fire fights ask only 22 a year instead of the 24 or more enjoyed by other departments, was not specifically denied.…Iowa cities which now provide Kelly days for their fire departments are: Sioux City, 3 days a month; Des Moines, 2 days; Davenport, 2 days; Mason City, 1 day; Burlington, 4 days; Ottumwa, 1 day; Council Bluffs, 1 day; Waterloo, 1 day; Keokuk, 1 day.» —“Firemen Will Ask Council for Kelly Days” Cedar Rapids Tribune (Iowa) Aug. 23, 1945. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

Leave a comment

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

Further reading

Completely Comprehensible Vague Language

Monica in Burlington, Vermont, says a friend recently told her that her day became kerfunkulated, and Monica knew what she meant without even asking. Why do we successfully infer the meaning of such words? Placeholder words such as thingamajiggy...

Dout a Fire, but Don’t Doubt It

As we’ve previously discussed, firefighters don and doff their equipment, terms deriving from do on and do off. They are also said to dout a fire, meaning they “extinguish” it, dout being a similar shortening of do out. This is...