witness post
n.— «In recent years the state of Louisiana has embarked on the grueling process of improving its infrastructure maps. People trudge through marshes looking for so-called witness posts, aboveground markers for pipelines. After one such study, notes Roland Guidry, Louisiana’s oil-spill coordinator, “some of the companies were flabbergasted that their pipelines were over a quarter of a mile off from where they thought.”» —“The next energy crisis” by Nicholas Varchaver Fortune/CNNMoney Aug. 2, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
National Book Award winner Barry Lopez had wise advice for young writers. First, read widely and follow your curiosity. Second, travel or learn a foreign language. And third, find out what you truly believe, because if you’re not writing from...
Loretta in Shreveport, Louisiana, wants to know what lexical and dialectal clues linguists look for when guessing where someone is from. She also wonders: Do people with long careers in the military or who grew up in a military family have a...