New York dress
n.— «Now let me tell you, chickens you sold fresh, they had to be almost still alive. When we first started selling chickens, they couldn’t have the skin broke on ’em, so they weren’t drawn. They just had their feathers off. The feet was still on ’em and the head ’cause that was what the housewife wanted to look at. She wanted to see how red the comb was and she would be able to tell the age of the chicken by seeing its feet. With the entrails still in the chicken like that, well, that’s called a New York dress.» —“When the count and countess made visits to Englewood” by Diana Harris Sun-Herald (Englewood, Florida) Oct. 28, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
She sells seashells by the seashore. Who is the she in this tongue twister? Some claim it’s the young Mary Anning, who went on to become a famous 19th-century British paleontologist. Dubious perhaps, but the story of her rise from seaside...
Corey in Buffalo, New York, says her family uses the word unta for “the piece of bread you use to sop up the last bite of what you’re eating.” They also use it as a verb, as in I’m going to unta. Her family is half Sephardic...