crunchy
n.— «Others in the Army call them grunts, or trigger pullers, or crunchies, for the sound of a tank rolling over a dead soldier. Sgt. Allan Toney has heard them all. “Bullet taker, bullet sponge, bullet stopper,” he recites while smoking a cigarette outside the concrete barriers protecting his battalion’s tent city. “Joe.”» —“Infantrymen thrive in the thick of things” by Wes Allison in Camp Pennsylvania, Kuwait St. Petersburg Times (Florida) Mar. 23, 2003. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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...
Sarah in Fleming Island, Florida, is curious about the saying sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you, which suggests “it’s a dog-eat-dog world,” or “eat or be eaten,” or more gently, “you win...