wet firecracker
n.— «For Charest, who is negotiating feverishly to bring his minority back from the brink of defeat in a budget vote on Friday, the report’s findings are welcome news. “This is what is called a wet firecracker,” Charest said in the National Assembly, adding “unfortunately for the people who were targeted, it’s an example of an unfair price to pay… for unfounded, unfair insinuations.”» —“Charest cleared in referendum report” by Sean Gordon in Montreal Toronto Star (Canada) May 30, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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Responding to our conversation about slang expressions for traveling by foot, a listener says that while growing up in Montreal, Canada, in the 1980s, she and her friends would refer to that mode of transportation as going by BMW, an acronym for...