popper
n.— «The Owen Sound lawyer shelved his legal briefs for a few days to navigate the Canadian Shield in a track motorcar—an odd and colourful contraption used by railroads to inspect lines and transport work crews until the machines were gradually phased out by the 1980s.…The cars are affectionately known as poppers and putt-putts for the sound of the older engines that have an ignition sparked by a hand crank, much like a Ford Model T. And they’re called speeders because, at about 50 kilometres per hour, the mechanized machines raced past the old hand cars they replaced.» —“Pleasure in a putt-putt; Tourists travel by rail on track motorcars” by Maria Calabrese Nugget (North Bay, Ontario, Canada) July 20, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Amy is a historian who leads walking tours in Atlanta, Georgia, but she’s puzzled by the name of a certain roadway there. It’s called Airline Street, but despite its name, it has nothing to do with Hartsfield-Jackson International. The name of this...
Chase from Jacksonville, Florida, grew up in Sacramento, California, where kids played Rochambeau instead of rock, paper, scissors. Why the difference in names? Nobody knows. Folklorists call this a choosing game, and while the hand-game itself...