pickled punk
n.— «I found out that in early-to-mid-20th century America, stillborn babies and aborted human fetuses, placed in glass jars full of formaldehyde, were a profitable business. The life of the unborn was protected by law, maybe, but a dead fetus was carnival gold. One reader recalls “a whole tentfull” of fetuses in jars at the Tennessee Valley Fair, half a century ago. He said it was like a nightmare. The deformed ones were in especially high demand. I heard from another reader that carnies even had a term for them: “pickled punks.”» —“Exhibits of Interest” by Jack Neely Metro Pulse (Knoxville, Tennessee) Apr. 16, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A listener named Tami contacted the show by WhatsApp to say that whenever someone would be talking about a subject that nobody else knew anything about, her father-in-law would respond with I had one of those, but the wheels came off. This is part...
David says that when he was growing up in Akron, Ohio, his family referred to the grassy area between the sidewalk and street as the devil strip. He’s since moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he doesn’t hear that term. There are lots...