Informal English: Puncture Ladies, Egg Harbors, Mississippi Marbles, and Other Curious Words and Phrases of North America

Gleaned from antiquated dictionaries, dialect glossaries, studies of folklore, nautical lexicons, historical writings, letters, novels, and miscellaneous sources, Informal English offers a captivating treasure trove of linguistic oddities that will not only entertain but also shed light on America's colloquial past. Among the gems are:

• Surface-coal: cow dung, widely used for fuel in Texas
• Bone-orchard: in the Southwest slang for a cemetery
• Chawswizzled: "confounded" in Nebraskan idio...