shotta
n.— «“Shottas,” a slick but dull new shoot-’em-up from Jamaica, doesn’t penetrate the mysteries of high-rolling, high-risk thug life. It perpetuates them. In the local patois, the title means “gangsta,” and that appears to be the most aspired-to occupation.» —“Violent and slick ‘Shottas’ lacks perception and a pulse” by Wesley Morris Boston Globe (Massachusetts) NOv. 3, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant step into the historic streets of Marblehead, Massachusetts, where the simple cry of “Down bucket!” could serve as a kind of local password. After they ponder that and other language of...
Meg in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, gets why the state highway department encourages drivers to use their blinkers when changing lanes, but placing a digital sign at the Sagamore Bridge that reads Use Ya Blinkah is, well, a lexical bridge too far. Meg’s...