take to the diaper
v. phr.— «They used to call it “taking to the diaper,” a phrase that referred to the preparation undertaken by a prudent senator before an extended filibuster. The late South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond holds the record for a solo filibuster from the time when he rambled for 24 hours and 18 minutes to prevent the Civil Rights Act of 1957 from coming to a vote.» —“Filibuster: Not Like It Used to Be” by Eleanor Clift Newsweek Nov. 15, 2003. (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...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...