stopper
n.— «Unlike many other public and private parks, Washington Square’s new granite benches do not have skate deterrents, or “stoppers”—small metal ribs attached to the stone that prevent what are known as “grinds,” in which skateboarders scrape their metal axles along a smooth, hard surface. Since the stoppers were introduced in 1998, hundreds of millions of them have been added or retrofitted onto new benches and hand railings around the country.» —“For skateboarders, it’s not the same old grind in new park” by Will Glovinksy The Villager (New York City) Sept. 2, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Martha from Grand Rapids, Ohio, wonders about the phrase having an axe to grind. She notes it once meant literally sharpening blades, but today it suggests having a chip on your shoulder or a troubling issue to resolve. The first known use of the...
How do you transform ancient Chinese script for use in the modern age? English uses a keyboard with just 26 letters, but the first Chinese typewriter looked like a small table under a huge disk with more than 4,000 characters. A new book chronicles...