bahl gorms
n.— «The “Boontling” Knox refers to is a sort of argot or private language valley locals developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries using the syntax of English but substituting parts for wholes or referring to things by their uses or their most famous users. For example, a pay telephone rendered in Boontling is a “bucky walter” because a man named Walter Levi owned the first telephone in Anderson Valley and a call on early pay phones cost a nickel, which in those days was the buffalo nickel, nicknamed a “bucky.” Phone booths on the streets of Boont (Boonville) still bear signs identifying each of them as a bucky walter, such as the one outside the Horn of Zeese Cafe (the name is Boontling for cup of coffee), where a bright- lighter (city slicker) can score some bahl gorms (good food) unless he/she wants to drive the extra six miles to Poleeko (Philo).» —“Anderson Valley Pinot Noir comes of age” by Steve Pitcher San Francisco Chronicle (California) July 8, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
When an international team of scientists traveled to a research station in Antarctica for six months, the language they all shared was English. After six months together, their accents changed ever so slightly — a miniature version of how language...
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