socks and knocks
n.pl.— «Readers should understand clearly that if the power industry prevails in its court challenges to the initiative, the huge amount of money expected to be spent primarily on reducing what the industry commonly calls “socks and knocks” might not get spent. (“Socks and knocks” is a word play on the symbols for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, SO2 and NOx, respectively.)» —“Cleaning Up With ‘Socks and Knocks’” by Bill Paul Motley Fool Apr. 21, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
A librarian opens a book and finds a mysterious invitation scribbled on the back of a business card. Another discovers a child’s letter to the Tooth Fairy, tucked into a book decades ago. What stories are left untold by these forgotten...