Word: drownder
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...language; its gaze is fixed instead on linguistic oddities too localized to win general acceptance. For example, Cassidy has discovered that in various parts of the U.S. a heavy rain is called a duck drencher, a chunk floater, a clod roller, a toad strangler and a goose drownder. False teeth are known colloquially as snappers, plaster pearls, chow chompers and china clippers. The term baby carriage is now used nationally, but baby coach is a popular variation in Mid-Atlantic states and baby buggy is used in the Midwest and West...
Cassidy takes issue with the critics of American English who fear that the language is becoming, well, as soggy as a hoagie in a goose drownder. "I defy anybody to prove that language is deteriorating," insists he. "It's still changing all the time, and it's as varied and alive as it's always been...
...inadequate levee since April. As the river rose they speeded up their work. While children helped their elders fill sandbags with toy shovels, and every able-bodied citizen lugged the bags to the levee, the river kept rising. Suddenly, everybody knew Grand Tower was going to have a "duck drownder." People stacked furniture in upper stories, took cattle and chickens to the high pasture near the cemetery, and waited "for her to blow." At dusk one night last week, she blew...
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