cotton curtain
n.— «From behind the “cotton curtain” of the Mississippi Delta last week came Dr. Theodore R. (for Roosevelt) Mason Howard.…Rated as Mississippi’s “most hated” Negro leader because of his refusal to buckle under pressure applied by anti-desegregationists, Dr. Howard is described “as a man who lets the chips fall where they may.”» —“Dr. Howard Gives 3-Point Program To Alpha Confab” by George Daniels Chicago Defender (Illinois) Jan. 14, 1956. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Sam in St. Charles, Illinois, says that when he mentioned a big old water tower nearby, his mother corrected him, saying the water tower wasn’t old, it was new. Can’t you use big old or big ol’ in that way? Of course you can! The...
When the pressure drops in an airplane cabin and all the oxygen masks fall, pilots refer to all that equipment hanging down as a rubber jungle. This is part of a complete episode.
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