sidewalk alumni
n.pl.— «A cheering, singing throng of 5,000 students, alumni, faculty, and sidewalk alumni braved 20 degree cold to crowd Boston’s south terminal.» —“Boston Leaves Star Back Home From Bowl Trip” in Boston, Massachusetts Chicago Daily Tribune Dec. 27, 1939. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The term skycap for workers who help with luggage at an airport was coined by analogy with redcap, a term for porters on trains who wore red caps. Skycap was the winning entry in a contest. Another contest, held in 1923, gave us the word scofflaw, a...
A magnificent new book celebrates the richness and diversity of 450 years of written and spoken English in what is now the United States. It’s called The People’s Tongue, and it’s a sumptuous collection of essays, letters, poems...