Tom walkers
n.pl.— «What are “Tom walkers,” you say? Why, bless yoru heart, don’t go talking about “stilts” out there in Oakland City. They are “Tom walkers” to everybody and every kid.» —“‘Tom Walker’ Fad Hits Oakland City; Kids Stepping High” by Paul Stevenson Atlanta Constitution (Ga.) Aug. 6, 1921. (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...
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...