low speed
adj.— «“Roger that,” said Young, clutching his soggy worksheet. “You guys are high speed.” High speed is a military term of endearment. Low speed, conversely, denotes anything uncool, such as Gussman’s older-edition helmet, which kept swimming around on his head and was due to be replaced. Gussman with the grappling hook? High speed.» —“An old soldier in a new war” by Jon Rutter LancasterOnline.com (Pennsylvania) May 18, 20008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Loretta in Shreveport, Louisiana, wants to know what lexical and dialectal clues linguists look for when guessing where someone is from. She also wonders: Do people with long careers in the military or who grew up in a military family have a...
A hundred years ago, suffragists lobbied to win women the right to vote. Linguistically speaking, though, suffrage isn’t about “suffering.” It’s from a Latin word that involves voting. Plus: military cadences often include...