Stephen Girard job
n.— «Years ago in Philadelphia they had what was known as a Stephen Girard job. During some previous hard times this philanthropist fenced in vacant ground, and anyone in need came in, carried bricks from one side to the other, and when the bricks were all stacked on one side, the reverse happened. When the men went home at night they received their pay.» —“Useless Work” by John Frier in St. Louis, Missouri Chicago Tribune Sept. 2, 1969. (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...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...