Mary, who grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, says her Illinois-born husband calls a tape measure a billy, a usage he learned from his father, who grew up in Canton, Illinois. English has other slangy uses of billy for long metal objects, including a...
Crossword-puzzle constructors often employ words with a vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel pattern, or VCCV. That’s the cruciverbal inspiration Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s VCCV puzzle. For example, if the clue is teen woe, what’s the four-letter answer...
cat-claw n.— «Part of our loot included a a short wrecking bar known to carpenters as a cat-claw. It’s pretty rusted after lying out in the weather all those months.» —“Curious trash along the highway” by Carl...