Ophelia in Johnson City, Tennessee, wonders about the exclamation her great-grandmother often used when something surprised her: Cat bristle! That may be her own version of a minced oath, although it fits with the idea of how a cat’s tail might look...
flymph n.— «Leafing through this little book, I was struck by the naturalness of the flies, some of which resembled the modern, soft-hackle “flymph” patterns popularized by Vernon S. Hidy. The blackened hooks were mostly sizes...

