white clown
n.— «Taproot Theatre director Karen Lund supplies a twinkly anti-realistic performance style to accompany Wilde’s ingenious artifices. Her cast includes inspired clowns: Aaron Lamb as Algernon, Kevin Brady as Jack, Charity Parenzini as Gwendolen and Bethany Hudson as Cecily. These four are what are called in comedy jargon “red clowns,” the zanies who are constantly skidding in the direction of disorder. Pam Nolte is the “white clown,” the desperate figure of respectability who attempts to impose some kind of order. And Kim Morris and Bill Johns are what might be called “pink clowns,” a dithering tutor and a blithering clergyman who struggle for propriety but stumble on the facts of life.» —“Darkly comic ‘Halcyon Days’ is smart and timely” by Joe Adcock Seattle Post-Intelligencer Oct. 1, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Jim in Columbia, South Carolina, has noticed sportscasters’ use of the phrase on the season with reference to a period of time. This construction shows up in the sports pages as early as the 1880s, first referring to a team’s revenue and...
Why would we describe something as having a meteoric rise when meteors fall to the ground? The adjective meteoric refers to the speed and duration of a meteor, not its direction. This is part of a complete episode.
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