rubber room
n.— «Reluctant to mess with the Speaker’s monument without strong backup, the G.S.A. boss, Gerald Carmen, asked for a report from his Office of Oversight, which is headed by William Clinkscales, who gained fame during the Carter years by blowing the whistle on Federal waste. For that, the Carterites had placed him in a “rubber room”—bureaucratese for an office without work to do—until Republicans came in and made him the agency’s official whistleblower.» —“Ozymondias O’Neill” by William Safire New York Times Apr. 11, 1983. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Nancy Gabriel from Ithaca, New York, recalls her father’s no-nonsense responses to minor injuries when she was a child: After making sure she was really all right, he’d say, It’s far enough from your heart; it won’t kill you. Other times he...
A listener in Unadilla, New York, says her husband, whose family is French-Canadian, uses the phrase That burns my onions when something irritates him. There are several kitchen-related metaphors used to express anger, including that steams my...