woolly bugger
n.— «“It’s like a woolly bugger,” the 61-year-old doctor explains as he wraps the green herl of a peacock feather around the metal shank of a fishhook, “but I’m going to tie it like a cockatouche.”» —“Inside Track Etobicoke’s Lord Of The Flies” Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada) May 30, 1996. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What’s up with ketchup? The shifting history and spelling of the name of this condiment. For centuries, ketchup was a fishy sauce originating in Asia—the tomatoes came only later! Plus, a new book shows what’s lost when a language dies: when there...
Kate in Omaha, Nebraska, wonders about the expression Doctor of Humane Letters, an honorary degree conferred by Creighton University. The words humane and letters in this case mean something slightly different from their modern meanings. The older...