thumper truck
n.— «Dawson has deployed three trucks to test 30-square miles that cover neighborhoods and non-residential areas in and around Fort Worth. The trucks emit a vibration into the ground ranging from 10-120 hertz. Small white boxes placed at 180-foot intervals are recording stations that can pick up the seismic signal from up to two miles away.…What some companies call a thumper truck.» —“Energy companies using seismic activity to test Barnett Shale through mid-August” by Erin Rice Pegasus News (Dallas, Texas) Aug. 5, 2008. (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...
The phrase don’t worry, it’ll be a pig’s foot in the morning is meant to comfort or reassure a child who’s stubbed her toe or scraped her knee or suffered some other minor injury. This expression is especially common in...