nos
n.— «“Nos” or “laughing gas” as it is known, is sold in silver canisters used to whip cream, and had been readily available at dairies and some hardware stores.» —“Gas sniffs killed boy?” by Alice Hudson Hawke’s Bay Today (New Zealand) Apr. 15, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Ron in Gloverville, South Carolina, wonders about the phrase since hatchet was hammer, which some use to mean “for a long period of time,” as in My family has lived here since hatchet was hammer. Another phrase he’s heard indicating the same thing...