ten-twent-thirt
n.— «The result has been, so the theatre managers themselves agree, not only the practical extinction of the cheaper melodramas which used to cater to “the masses,” the “ten-twent-thirts,” as they were called, plays which had no literary quality whatever, and were never so well done as film-players do the same sort of thing, but also the practical desertion of the gallery seats for dramas of the better sort. A generation ago it would have been almost inconceivable that a man would build a theatre without any gallery in it.» —“Class-Consciousness and the ‘Movies’” by Walter Prichard Eaton Atlantic Jan., 1915. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Mackenzie from Green Bay, Wisconsin, learned the word agita from a friend in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She uses it to refer to “that heavy, sluggish feeling one gets after eating too much,” the feeling some call the meat sweats. The word agita comes...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski was inspired by his college-age son’s remote classes, which he could hear but not quite make out through the wall. For this week’s puzzle, he offers a similarly garbled description of a college course. For example, which...