tin medal
n.— «For some kind of tin medal for having made the least valuable contribution toward solving the strike situation in defense industries, we nominate those gentlemen who rose in the Senate and House and shrieked for “the electric chair” and “treason charges punishable by 25 years’ imprisonment” for strikers.» —“Plain Good Sense Will Pull Us Through” Clearfield Progress (Pa.) Apr. 8, 1941. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
One of the most powerful words you’ll ever hear — and one of the most poignant — isn’t in dictionaries yet. But it probably will be one day. The word is endling, and it means “the last surviving member of a species.” The...
It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people disagreed over the best word to use when answering the phone. Alexander Graham Bell suggested answering with ahoy! but Thomas Edison was partial to hello! A fascinating new book about...