past-posting
n.— «The judge’s story is that Alvin Kaiser, Houma third baseman, admitted he had clipped the bookie for $185 through the ruse of the past posting and the turned back clock. He said he didn’t have anything to do with the clock turning, himself.» —“Two Stories As Regards Horse Rooms” by Lawrence J. Skiddy Syracuse Herald-Journal (N.Y.) Jan. 30, 1947. (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...
After hearing our conversation about how dictionaries decide on a preferred pronunciation, and specifically about how to pronounce aioli, Vern from San Diego, California, wrote to say that a friend once made fun of him for pronouncing grimace with a...