wig-wags
n.— «Part Two of Question: What are the yellow flashing lights that move from side to side on the runway? They put you in the mind of caution lights. If these are caution lights, why would they be on the runway or taxiway? Answer: They’re called “wig-wags” and are used in low visibility to help prevent pilots from inadvertently taxiing onto a runway without a clearance (known as a “runway incursion”).…The term “wig-wags” is also used to describe other types of alternating lights, such as the landing lights Southwest uses on their fleet for improved visibility.» —“Why do pilots want to kill the rabbit?” by Meryl Getline USA Today Feb. 20, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
If you speak both German and Spanish, you may find yourself reaching for a German word instead of a Spanish one, and vice versa. This puzzling experience is so common among polyglots that linguists have a name for it. • The best writers create...
Tom in Tallahassee, Florida, wonders why he and his fellow buddies called the store on a ship the gedunk, also geedunk, and also applied the word to the sweets and other goodies they purchased there. As Paul Dickson notes in his book War Slang, some...