terror-clown
n.— «The car bombs—one parked outside a London nightclub, one near Trafalgar Square and one driven into Glasgow airport—seemed especially incompetent. Lewis Page, a former bomb-disposal officer, suspects the patio-gas canisters crammed into the three vehicles would not have made much of a bang even if they had gone off. The “terror-clowns,” as he calls them, had their second London car bomb towed away by parking wardens; the driver of the Glasgow jeep doused himself in petrol only to be put out again by the fire brigade.» —“Three times lucky” Economist July 5, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining the history of words and phrases. And: have you ever been in a situation where a group makes...
A librarian opens a book and finds a mysterious invitation scribbled on the back of a business card. Another discovers a child’s letter to the Tooth Fairy, tucked into a book decades ago. What stories are left untold by these forgotten...