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
Ophelia in Johnson City, Tennessee, wonders about the exclamation her great-grandmother often used when something surprised her: Cat bristle! That may be her own version of a minced oath, although it fits with the idea of how a cat’s tail might look...
Homer in Kingsport, Tennessee, says that when Homer came in after curfew, his dad would say, “You guys have been out swarping, haven’t you?” Swarping is related to a variety of dialect terms in Scotland and Northern England that have to do with...