Stradivarus
n.— «Stradivarus can be defined as a piece of junk that’s either a) obsolete or b) in a very bad state and c) looks much older than it is.» —“Stradivarus moment” by spam_robot77 Vintage from the Charity Shop (U.K.) Jan. 4, 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...
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...