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
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
Aubrey in Waco, Texas, says her mother used to warn the kids against contracting honkus of the bonkus, a fanciful name for a contagious disease. This colloquial term probably comes from the words bonk and konk, meaning “to hit” or...