socks and knocks
n.pl.— «The seven criteria pollutants are carbon monoxide (CO); lead; sulphur dioxide (SOx) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) (often called “socks and knocks”).» —“Air Quality Regulation in Minnesota” by Mike Bull in Research Department of the Minnesota House of Representatives House Research Short Subjects (St. Paul, Minn.) Oct., 2002. (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...
After hearing our conversation about how dictionaries decide on a preferred pronunciation, and specifically about how to pronounce aioli, Vern from San Diego, California, wrote to say that a friend once made fun of him for pronouncing grimace with a...