The highly specialized vocabulary of people who work outdoors, communicating with sled dogs, a word from the sport of rock-climbing, church key, browse line, smeuse, nitnoy, mommick, zawn, zwer, boom dog, and I think my pig is whistling. This...
A trucker in Glasgow, Kentucky, wonders about the term boom dog, a device used to secure things on a trailer. The boom may be inspired by a ship’s boom. The word dog has long been used in a variety of ways to refer to something that holds...
Everyone knows you don’t start a sentence with but. But why? Also, how voice recognition technology is changing the way we think and write and what English sounds like to foreigners. Plus, where cockamamie comes from, oddly translated movie...
coolio n.— «What the trucker cap and wallet chain were to hipsters of a moment ago, the Kramden is to what my colleague Mike Albo refers to as the “coolios” of now. Leading with a belly is a male privilege of long standing, of course, a...
run wild v. phr.— «His usual workweek is a five-day, four-night route around California or the Southwest—”running wild” in Wal-Mart trucker parlance—delivering goods to stores, used pallets to warehouses and...
pickle park n.— «Once while passing a “Pickle Park” in mid-Virginia, I heard a trucker trying to sell a 150w linear.» —“Re: Politically incorrect CB topics…“ by Arlen Speights Usenet: rec.radio.cb Apr...