kul shee maku
n.— «“It’s always kul shee maku ,” said Sgt. Rob Hammer, a 32-year-old squad leader from Sublette, Kan., reciting the Arabic phrase for “there is nothing,” which the entire platoon has memorized.» —“For a U.S. Platoon in Iraq, Merciless Missions” by Steve Fainaru in Balad, Iraq Washington Post Sept. 9, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
Jim in Columbia, South Carolina, has noticed sportscasters’ use of the phrase on the season with reference to a period of time. This construction shows up in the sports pages as early as the 1880s, first referring to a team’s revenue and...