retail jail
n.— «In a recent story about Home Office plans to ease the burden on police by creating so-called “retail jails” in shopping centres, the phrase “custody suites” was used. I’ve heard of bridal suites, a three-piece suite even, but custody suites? I think most people associate the word suite with a certain amount of comfort, luxury even. Perhaps would-be criminals have also heard about these suites, and want to find out for themselves if they’re actually as nice as they sound.» —“In a manner of speaking, we’re in danger of talking utter gibberish” by Chris Bond Yorkshire Post (United Kingdom) Apr. 2, 2007. (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...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...