splash mark
n.— «On the bridge side of the final concrete barrier between the shoes and Mahde’s body, there are four rough hollows where bullets struck. An American soldier points them out; he refers to them as splash marks.» —“US soldiers shoot first, no questions asked” by Gethin Chamberlain The Scotsman (Glasgow, Scotland) Sept. 17, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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Loretta in Shreveport, Louisiana, wants to know what lexical and dialectal clues linguists look for when guessing where someone is from. She also wonders: Do people with long careers in the military or who grew up in a military family have a...