sides
n.— «Through skits, “Sides”—the word is theater jargon for audition texts—sends up the tension among actors, the ridiculous concepts for shows (“Hip-Hop Medea”) and the sort of director who says, “I have two words for you: orange.”» —“Auditions: The Do’s, the Don’ts, the Sheer Terror” by Ada Calhoun New York Times Sept. 4, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A young caller from the Hudson Valley of New York wonders about his grandmother’s use of stemwinder to praise a speech she thought was excellent. In the early 1800s, people used pocket watches that had to be wound with a tiny key. Once someone...
Amid court-ordered busing in the 1970s, a middle-school teacher tried to distract her nervous students on the first day of class with this strange assignment: find a monarch caterpillar. The result? A memorable lesson in the miracle of metamorphosis...