pavement ripper
n.— «“I remember driving 1977 and 1978 police cars, and we had a couple of old 1978 Plymouths,” said Michigan State Police F/Lt. Patrick McGreevy, who became a policeman in 1980. ” We used to refer to them as pavement rippers. They were built for flat out speed, but once you braked hard, those older cars were hard to keep under control.”» —“Police cars and technology: Then and now” by Susan Younger County Press (Lapeer, Michigan) June 4, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in today’s Appalachia. Martha shares memories of a long-ago visit to Kingsolver’s family farm in Virginia, where they...
Mark in Scranton, Pennsylvania, calls about a phrase he heard on an old detective show: drop a dime. It means “to inform on someone” or “tip off the police,” and comes from the practice of literally dropping a dime into a...