wire-brush treatment
n.— «At 70, still sprints up Pentagon stairways. Senior civilians describe their boss as fierce and demanding; senior military officers describe sessions with him as “the wire-brush treatment.”» —“Rumsfeld’s Search for a Way To Fight a New Type of Foe” by Thom Shanker in Washington, D.C. New York Times Sept. 4, 2002. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...