shape
v.— «Each weekday United Hispanic workers “shape”—search for work—by driving throughout Manhattan and the Bronx and visiting job sites.…As the shape van wound down to ground zero and back to the Bronx, a picture of construction employment in the city emerged.…By the time Mr. Mackey returned to the shape hall shortly after noon, several members were snoozing in the back of the van. No members got work that morning, but that was not the shape’s sole purpose.…Mr. Haughton set up in a storefront at Fifth Avenue and 125th Street, where he and the other founders of Harlem Fight Back began organizing demonstrations, going to court and “shaping” black workers.…On the day of the shape, after the vans returned, about 50 workers convened in the shape hall.» —“This Hammer for Hire” by Johnny Dwyer New York Times Feb. 4, 2007. (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 might...
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...