sidewalk alumni
n.pl.— «Fordham and St. Mary’s, the “Irish” of the east and west coasts, are to meet in their annual football game at the Polo Grounds this afternoon and the sidewalk alumni will be there to the last man.» —“Fordham In Action With One Eye Cocked On Pasadena’s Bowl” by Davis J. Walsh in New York Lincoln Star (Nebraska) Nov. 4, 1933. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The new Downton Abbey movie is a luscious treat for fans of the public-television period piece, but how accurate is the script when it comes to the vocabulary of the early 20th century? It may be jarring to hear the word swag, but it was already at...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has crafted a quiz involving a polysyllabic word followed by another word that repeats the last of those syllables twice. For example, suppose the clue is: “When playing a simple game with a toddler, it’s a real...