Say the first word that comes to mind... (Page 22 of 66)

Said the bold professor on the last day of class, tossing back his head to laugh the self-satisfied laugh of the tenured as twenty-five sullen mouths grimaced and forty-nine* haggard eyes sighed, for they'd studied all night.

*one of the students is a pirate.

EL TRUMPIE

http://www.wacotrib.com/opinion/columns … 0639c.html

"Sweet Sassy Molassy"

frondescence

Cat-burglar-nip

She heard it through the grapevine.

(origin, Colonel Bee ACW?)

The image of Colonel Bee stringing his telegraph wires throughout the trees. and some observer christening his improvised communications network, 'the grapevine'; and that nickname becoming a national metaphor for improvised or non-structured communication, is awesome.

Would we even know and use the term so generally if it hadn't have been for the Marvin Gaye song? (Especially here in the UK).

It answers a long-term question of mine that I'd forgotten. As a youngster, I'd never encountered the term and the aforementioned song lyrics baffled me when first heard. 

It was as alien to my ear and someone singing 'I heard it through the strawberry plant' or  'I heard it through the turnip'

I read that the 'grapevine' was a tavern of that name where the movers and shakers of the time rubbed elbows with everyone else--and carried on business.

Interleaved

A bee in your bonnet

A fly in the ointment