TOFI
n.— «According to research by some cheery fellow called Professor Jimmy Bell, large numbers of skinny people are really closet fatties, storing huge amounts of lard within their apparently tiny frames. The Prof has even invented a nice little acronym for these self-satisfied beanpoles who have, until now, lorded it over the lardy. He calls them TOFIs, for Thin on the Outside, Fat on the Inside. According to Jimmy, as many as four out of every 10 of the stick-thin are really fatties.» —“So much for smug skinnies: it’s what is on the inside that counts” by Paul Stokes Scotland on Sunday (Glasgow, Scotland) Dec. 24, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Understanding the varieties of conversational styles can mean the difference between feeling you’re understood and being insulted. “High-involvement” speakers interrupt or talk along with someone else to signal their enthusiasm...
Amid court-ordered busing in the 1970s, a middle-school teacher tried to distract her nervous students on the first day of class with this strange assignment: find a monarch caterpillar. The result? A memorable lesson in the miracle of metamorphosis...