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Gleaned from early dictionaries, dialect glossaries,
studies of folklore, nautical lexicons, historical writings,
letters, novels, and miscellaneous sources, Informal English
offers a treasure trove of linguistic oddities
that will entertain and shed light on America's colloquial
past. Among the gems are:
Leather-ears:
to Cape Cod inhabitants, a
person of slow comprehension.
Park the biscuit:
to sit down.
Chawswizzled:
confounded; a Nebraska
word. "I'll be chawswizzled!"
Mouthprints:
spoken words, especially
when used as evidence.
Puncture lady:
a Southwestern expression
for a woman who prefers to sit on the
sidelines at a dance and gossip rather than
dance, often puncturing somebody's
reputation.
Left-legged:
clumsy in walking.
Bone-orchard:
slang for a cemetery in the
Southwest.
Jerp:
a small quantity, used most often in
reference to sweets.
Horse drama:
a form of drama in which
trained horses are used.
Scurryfunge:
a hasty tidying of the house
between the time you see a neighbor and
the time she knocks.
In paperback from Simon and Schuster.
ISBN 0-7732-5493-7. |
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