tar-tar
n.— Note: “Toi toi” is a type of grass native to New Zealand, as described here, although there is at least one species of bird native to the country, the North Island tomtit, that is of the subspecies “toitoi.” «“Her father, pretending to be the girl, wrote back to him and said meet me at midnight. Poor old Mr Golder got all dressed up and went to meet his beau but as the paper described it “the arms that beheld him were not those of his beloved.” He copped a tar-tar as it was known in those days.”A tar-tar was a uniquely New Zealand version of tarring and feathering, with toi tois in place of feathers.» —“19th-century paper offers window on another time” by Matthew Stewart Wairarapa Times (New Zealand) Oct. 16, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What’s up with ketchup? The shifting history and spelling of the name of this condiment. For centuries, ketchup was a fishy sauce originating in Asia—the tomatoes came only later! Plus, a new book shows what’s lost when a language dies: when there...
Chase from Jacksonville, Florida, grew up in Sacramento, California, where kids played Rochambeau instead of rock, paper, scissors. Why the difference in names? Nobody knows. Folklorists call this a choosing game, and while the hand-game itself...