Connie in Santee, California, is curious about a term she read in Isabel Wilkerson’s acclaimed history of the Great Migration out of the Jim Crow South, The Warmth of Other Suns (Bookshop|Amazon). A shotgun house is a narrow house, the width...
hung up adj.— «I couldn’t see the bird, but I knew he was “hung up” in turkey hunting vernacular, strutting his stuff with the logical expectation that the hen (me) would come to him. That’s how it usually works in nature, but...
shotgun v. to try a variety of methods; to make repeated attempts; to take an indiscriminate approach; to be scattershot. Editorial Note: Besides the obvious “to kill or shoot with a shotgun,” a more common meaning of to shotgun is...
bajador n.— «Even the gentler smugglers are routinely armed with assault rifles, shotguns or pistols. Firepower serves to intimidate clients who might try to escape. It also defends against so-called bajadores, bandits who kidnap...