three plastic animals rule
n.— «The “three plastic animals rule” in Christmas display cases seems to confirm that religious symbols must be disrespectfully cheapened to be widely acceptable.» —by Nancy L. Rosenblum Membership and Morals Mar. 30, 1998. (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...
After hearing our conversation about how dictionaries decide on a preferred pronunciation, and specifically about how to pronounce aioli, Vern from San Diego, California, wrote to say that a friend once made fun of him for pronouncing grimace with a...