Fat bread

At home we always had a fry up or mixed grill on Saturdays. Our version included egg, beans, bacon, sausage, black pudding and  - wait for it - what my mother called fried bread and what my father called fat bread. In my head fried bread is the hard version also known as fried toast and fat bread is the soft version, dipped in the bacon fat only for a few moments. That distinction did not really exist in my parents minds it was just that dad used this phrase that I have not been able to locate anywhere on the Internet in this connection.

Doughboys

My wife made some dumplings for a casserole the other day not a regular treat. My dad often made the dumplings for stew at home. He always called them doughboys.

Doughboys are boiled or possibly steamed or deep-fried dumplings.

The word can be used as a nickname for soldiers or other things.

Sheath or sheaf

I am really enjoying Bart van Es's prize winning book The cut out girl and have almost finished it. I was surprised, however, to find on page 209 what appears to be a mistake.
Half way down the page he begins anew paragraph

On the desk in my hotel room lies a second sheath of papers.

Surely that should be

On the desk in my hotel room lies a second sheaf of papers.

Professor Paul Brians of Washington State is with me on this. (If you take your knife out of its sheath (case) you can use it to cut a sheaf (bundle) of wheat to serve as a centerpiece.) It is apparently a common error and yet this is written by a Professor of English Literature at Oxford University and appears in a Penguin paperback.

Perhaps it is simply that the papers were in a sheath.