Join the masses who listen to A Way With Words, the call-in radio show and podcast about words and language.
Catchword for “blue canary”
Catchword: blue canary
Filed Under: , , ,
Part of Speech: n.
The part of speech reflects that used in the full entry, and not necessarily the part of speech as it is used in the quotation below.
Quotation: Altschul said that the first responders to any terrorist attack would likely be police or firefighters. Like the canaries once used by miners to detect poisonous methane gas, the “blue canaries,” as police and firefighters are sometimes called, would probably suffer heavy casualties until the agent is identified.
Article or Document Title:
“Army giving cities fighting chance against chemical weapons attack”
Author:
Ron Martz
Article, Document, Publication, Web Site:
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Publishing Location:
Georgia
Date of Publication:
June 29, 1997
Page Number:
B06
This cite belongs to a full entry for blue canary.
Posted 3 Jun 06 | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Leave a comment, which must be approved by the moderator before it will appear. Courtesy matters!

Keep in mind that we're interested in terms that are not well-covered in mainstream dictionaries, or not covered at all. A mass of unexamined Google hits counts for nothing, but an early use of the term you've found in a book or periodical is very useful. A term does not have to be new to be recorded here, it merely needs to be worthy of more attention.
Name (mandatory):

Email (mandatory):

Location (optional):

Your Web Site (optional):

Remember my personal information

Notify me, by email, of follow-up comments.

Recent Catchwords
charticle n. (10/6)
window-dress v. (10/5)
doughnut effect n. (10/5)
Southwest effect n. (10/5)
glass closet n. (10/5)
relamp v. (10/5)
ghost voting n. (10/5)
jallad n. (10/5)
hanging yellow n. (10/5)
Chekhov’s gun n. (10/5)
primary v. (10/3)
mack n. (10/3)
bridge-up n. (10/3)
paramount lighting n. (10/3)
HAC n. (10/2)
hydraulicking n. (10/2)
waterfall structure n. (10/2)
doughing in n. (10/1)
drop table n. (10/1)
spag n. (10/1)
 More catchwords...
Lexicographer's Rules
Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours (10/6)
What a bitchin’ word! (9/24)
Don’t forget about the dialect: dauncy/donsie, faunch, and jockey box (9/10)
Wilf? Yuffer? Get real! (8/27)
Lexicographer Laurence Urdang Dies at 81 (8/26)
A thesaurus can be harmful (8/6)
Can bad language punditry be stopped? Can false attributions for classic quotes be fixed? (7/27)
There’s one in every country (7/23)
Scottish Language Dictionaries fundraiser (7/12)
SouthWest Writers (7/10)
 More blog entries...
Find A Word  »
 A   B   C   D   E 
 F   G   H   I   J 
 K   L   M   N   O 
 P   Q   R   S   T 
 U   V   W   X   Y 
 Z   0-9 
Search
Search Site

Google Site Search
Recent searches: -back… soccer… degenerate… people… goodbye…
New Comments
rajan commented on cope up (10/6)
Rod Teague commented on Taig (10/3)
Deborah Davenport commented on balloon construction (10/1)
lawmak commented on talk out (the side of) one's neck (10/1)
Peter Heck commented on spiff (10/1)
Vickie Hamrick commented on singlism (10/1)
Jay-Low commented on rocket surgery (10/1)
Wilson Gray commented on night trick (9/29)
Lou commented on Yankee dime (9/28)
Bruce Savoy commented on rexing (9/28)
Mark Weller commented on hokey Dinah (9/27)
misty commented on janky (9/27)
raisa commented on little red dot (9/26)
Superman commented on night trick (9/25)
marcia martin commented on terminal wean (9/24)
Subscribe to the RSS feed. • Subscribe to the mailing list. • Browse the archive. • Add to Technorati Favorites. • © 1999-2008 by Grant Barrett, Double-Tongued Dictionary, New York City.