bonk
n.— «A simple anecdote was told about how one of the city’s firefighters was concerned that the “NC bonk”—a feature designed to alert him when the radio was out of signal range—had not activated recently and thus was broken.» —“Kansas City upgrades and training win praises” Channels Close Up Oct. 1, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
As we’ve previously discussed, firefighters don and dofftheir equipment, terms deriving from do on and do off. They are also said to dout a fire, meaning they “extinguish” it, dout being a similar shortening of do out. This is part...
It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people disagreed over the best word to use when answering the phone. Alexander Graham Bell suggested answering with ahoy! but Thomas Edison was partial to hello! A fascinating new book about...