A: Did you read the news about the suicide of a woman 40 weeks into pregnancy?

B: Yeah, that’s quite a coffee-spitter. I simply cannot imagine that a woman would commit suicide because of insufferable pains from childbirth. It’s also shocking that there was no one around when she jumped out of the window.

Note: A coffee-spitter refers to a shocking action, event or piece of information, particularly a newspaper headline or article. This item of office slang, reported in the London Evening Standard in March 2004, refers to something so outrageous or upsetting that it causes spluttering and/or expulsion of a drink. People may also use “marmalade-dropper,” “muffin-choker” or “cornflake-choker” to mean the same thing, as they normally read morning news over breakfast.