office wife
n.— «“I’m not very much pleased with the way you and Ted Jones and Jim Farrel cut up. They call you ‘our office wife’ and act as if they had known you all their lives.” “Office wife?” repeated Helen, “well what of it? Every modern girl laughs at that. Haven’t you a spark of humor?”» —“Fifty-Fifty” by Faye Stevenson Lincoln State Journal (Neb.) July 30, 1923. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In 1971, when a new public library opened in Troy, Michigan, famous authors and artists were invited to write letters to the city’s youngest readers, extolling the many benefits of libraries. One of the loveliest was from E.B. White, author of...
Michael from Jones, Michigan, says he was stationed on a U.S. Army base in Germany in the early 1960s. If there was a gust of cold wind, a fellow soldier would say the hawk’s out. This expression is largely associated with Chicago, Illinois...