who laid the rail
adv. phr.— «For all those years I have been loaded for bear with lectures of all sorts and sizes on “Who laid the Rail” to “What the Wild Western Waves are Saying.”» —“Tom Arter’s Lecture” Macon Telegraph (Georgia) May 19, 1890. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A lifeguard in Central Florida is perplexed when his fellow lifeguards indicate they’ve heard a radio transmission by responding with a phrase like Tower Two copies rather than Tower Two, copy. Which is correct? They both are. The word copy in radio...
Roderick in Jacksonville, Florida, says patients in his cardiac electrophysiology practice often look at the tangle of EKG wires on their chests and joke that now they’re wired for sound. What’s the origin of this phrase? Although to wire meaning...