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
Diane, a bridge player from Wilmington, North Carolina, asks about sitting with the bathtub, a phrase her friend uses for a lopsided game where one pair keeps getting the good cards. The phrase appears in newspaper columns about bridge starting in...
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...