peculiar institution
n.— «Alabama is now the fourth Southern state where modern-day lawmakers have apologized for slavery. In Mississippi, though, there has been no grand push to get an official acknowledgment of regret for what was once euphemistically called “the peculiar institution.”» —“Mississippi still not among the states apologizing for slavery” by Emily Wagster Pettus Sun Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi) May 28, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Kim from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, remembers her Alabama-born mother asking, Where are you proging today? The word progue, also spelled prog, is a bit of dialect meaning “to poke around” or “to ramble.” In the UK, this word, from a Germanic root...
Julie in Fort Pierce, Florida, recalls that on sweltering days her mother would declare the weather was hotter than Billy Blue Blazes! The word blazes is a euphemism for “hell,” as in hot as blazes. The blue in blue blazes has long been used as an...