wedgebuster
n.— «Goff’s role as a “wedgebuster” is part of the historic derivative of one of football’s oldest and most dangerous plays: the Flying Wedge, first used by Harvard against Yale in 1892. Back then, 10 men formed a V alignment to protect one ball carrier from 11 tacklers. Sometimes, they linked arms or grasped large loops sewn into the trousers of their teammates. The play caused so many injuries that it was banned in 1894, but variations of it continued because coaches found ways around the letter of the law.» —“Wedgebusting Is a Slice of Football at Its Most Violent” by Joe LaPointe New York Times Nov. 13, 2008. (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...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...