A fancy-sounding yet affectionate name for a car that is even less functional than a hoopty. A car might be called this because "it rolls down one hill, and canardly get up the next".
Exact origin unknown, but it is a pun on Rolls Royce, a particular expensive make of motor vehicle, and "Canardly", I believe a make of small passenger aircraft.
The thankless task of being the first one to take a hit, from the practice of coal miners of bringing down a caged canary to see if there's dangerous gas below
I don't know if this alleyway's safe, and I ain't no canary in a coal mine.
When you have to pee in a movie but don’t want to miss anything, and must do the following mental equation: will the amount I have to pee cause enough discomfort to diminish my attention capacity for the remainder of the movie to an extent which is greater than the amount of the movie I would miss by making a mad dash to the restroom.
I saw Satantango last night, wonderful film but by the 5th hour I had to start doing pee calculus.
Short-hand for the word floccinaucinihilipilification, meaning the estimation of something as valueless (encountered mainly as an example of one of the longest words in the English language).