THE MORE THAN COMPLETE DEEPER MEANING OF LIFF
by: Douglas Adams
Contributions made by:
TK--Taryn Kutish
AU--AaRoN uNiCe
TH--Tom Halliwell
PK--Paul Krulack
MK--Mary Kemmerer
GT--Geno Thackara
AALST (n) One who changes his name in order to be nearer the front.
AASLEAGH (n) A liqeur made only for drinking at the end of a revoltingly
long bottle party when all the drinkable drink has been drunk.
ABALEMMA (n) The agonizing situation in which there is only one possible
decision, but you still can’t make it.
ABERBEEG (v) Of amateur actors, to adopt a Mexican accent when called
upon to play any variety of foreigner (except Pakistanis -
from whom a Welsh accent is considered sufficient).
ABERCRAVE (v) To strongly desire to swing from the pole on the rear
footplate of a San Francisco cable car.
ABERT (v) To change a baby’s name at the last possible moment.
ABERYSTWYTH (n) A nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant than
the thing being yearned for.
ABILENE (adj) Descriptive of the pleasing coolness on the reverse side of
the pillow.
ABINGER (n) One who washes up everything except the frying pan, the
cheese grater and the saucepan which the chocolate sauce hasbeen made in.
ABLIGO (n) One who prides himself on not even knowing what day of
the week it is.
ABOYNE (v) To beat an expert at a game of skill by playing so
appallingly that none of his clever tactics or strategies
are of any use to him.
ABRUZZO (n) The worn patch of ground under a swing.
ABSECON (n) An annual conference held at the Dragonara Hotel, Leeds,
for people who haven’t got any other conferences to go to.
ABWONG (v) To bounce cheerfully on a bed.
ACKLINS (pl. n) The odd twinges you get in parts of your body when
you scratch other parts.
ACLE (n) The rogue pin which shirtmakers conceal in the most
improbable fold of a new shirt. Its function is to stab you
when you don the garment.
ADDIS ABABA (n) The torrent of incomprehensible gibberish which
emanates from the loudspeakers on top of cars covered in stickers.
ADLESTROP (n) That part of a suitcase which is designed to get snagged upon
conveyor belts at airports. Some of the more modern
adlestrop designs have a special ’quick release’ feature
which enables the case to flip open at this point and fling
your underclothes into the conveyor belt’s gearing
mechanism.
ADRIGOLE (n) The centerpiece of a merry-go-round on which the man with
the tickets stands unnervingly still.
AFFCOT (n) The sort of fart you hope people will talk after.
AFFPUDDLE (n) A puddle which is hidden under a pivoted paving stone. You
only know it’s there when you step on the paving stone and
the puddle shoots up your leg.
AGGLETHORPE (n) A dispute between two pooves in a boutique.
AHENNY (adj) The way people stand when examining other people’s
bookshelves.
AIGBURTH (n) Any piece of readily identifiable anatomy found amongst
cooked meat.
AINDERBY QUERNHOW (n) One who continually bemoans the ’loss’ of the word ’gay’ to
the English language, even though they had never used the
word in any context at all until they started complaining
that they couldn’t use it any more.
AINDERBY STEEPLE (n) One who asks you a question with the apparent motive of
wanting to hear your answer, but who cuts short your opening
sentence by leaning forward and saying ’and I’ll tell you
why I ask...’ and then talking solidly for the next hour.
AINSWORTH (n) The length of time it takes to get served in a camera shop.
Hence, also, how long we will have to wait for the abolition
of income tax or the Second Coming.
AIRD OF SLEAT (n, archaic) Ancient Scottish curse placed from afar on the stretch of
land now occupied by Heathrow Airport.
AITH (n) The single bristle that sticks out sideways on a cheap paintbrush.
ALBACETE (n) A single surprisingly long hair growing in the middle of nowhere.
ALBUQUERQUE (n) A shapeless squiggle which is utterly unlike your normal
signature, but which is, nevertheless, all you are able to
produce when asked formally to identify yourself. Muslims, whose religion forbids the making of graven images, use
albuquerques to decorate their towels, menu cards and pajamas.
ALCOY (adj) Wanting to be bullied into having another drink.
ALDCLUNE (n) One who collects ten-year-old telephone directories.
ALLTAMI (n) The ancient art of being able to balance the hot and cold
shower taps.
AMBATOLAMPY (n) The bizarre assortment of objects collected by a sleepwalker.
AMBLESIDE (n) A talk given about the Facts of Life by a father to his son
whilst walking in the garden on a Sunday afternoon.
AMERSHAM (n) The sneeze which tickles but never comes.
(Thought to derive from the Metropolitan Line tube station
of the same name where the rails always rattle but the train
never arrives.)
AMLWCH (n) A British Rail sandwich which has been kept soft by being
regularly washed and resealed in clingfilm.
AMPUS (n) A lurid bruise which you can’t remember getting.
AMPVER (n) -AU- The apparant sound amplification experienced when one tries
to open the wrapper of a candy or cough drop in a library or study hall.
ANANTNAG (v) (Eskimo term) To bang your thumbs between the oars while rowing.
ANJOZOROBE (n) A loose, colored garment someone brings you back from
their travels, which they honestly expect you to wear.
ARAGLIN (n, archaic) A medieval practical joke played by young squires on a
knight aspirant the afternoon he is due to start his vigil.
As the knight arrives at the castle the squires attempt to
raise the drawbridge very suddenly as the knight and his
charger step on to it.
ARDCRONY (n) A remote acquaintance passed off as ’a very good friend of
mine’ by someone trying to impress people.
ARDELVE (n) To make a big display of searching all your pockets when
approached by a charity collector.
ARDENTINNY (n) One who rubs his hands eagerly together when
sitting down in a restaurant.
ARDSCALPSIE (n) Excuse made by rural Welsh hairdresser for completely
massacring your hair.
ARDSCULL (n) Excuse made by rural Welsh hairdresser for deep wounds
inflicted on your scalp in an attempt to rectify whatever itwas that induced the ardscalpsie (q.v.).
ARDSLIGNISH (adj) Adjective which describes the behaviour of Sellotape when
you are tired.
ARTICLAVE (n) A clever architectural construction designed to give the
illusion from the top deck of a bus that it is far too big
for the road.
ASHDOD (n) Any object against which a smoker habitually knocks out his pipe.
AUBUSSON (n) The hairstyle a girl adopts for a special occasion which
suddenly gives you a sense of what she will look like in twenty years.
AYNHO (v) Of waiters, never to have a pen.
BABWORTH (n) Something which justifies having a really good cry.
BADACHONACHER (n) An on-off relationship which never gets resolved.
BADGEBUP (n) The splotch on a child’s face where the ice cream cone has missed.
BALDOCK (n) The sharp prong on the top of a tree stump where the tree
has snapped off before being completely sawn through.
BALEMARTINE (n) The look which says, "Stop talking to that woman at once."
BALLYCUMBER (n) One of the six half-read books lying somewhere in your bed.
BALZAN (n) The noise of a trash can lid coming off in the middle of the night.
BANFF(n) Pertaining to, or descriptive of, that kind of facial
expression which is impossible to achieve except when having
a passport photograph taken.
BANTEER (n) A lusty and reucous old ballad sung after a particulary
spectacular araglin (q.v.) has been pulled off.
BARSTIBLEY(n) A homorous device such as a china horse or smalled naked
porcelain infant which jocular hosts use of piss water into your Scotch with.
BATHEL (v) To pretend you have read the book under discussion
when in fact you’ve only seen the TV series.
BAUGHURST (n) That kind of large fierce ugly woman who owns a small
fierce ugly dog.
BAUMBER (n) A fitted eleasticated bottom sheet which turns your
mattress banana-shaped.
BAUPLE (n) An indeterminate pustule which could be either a pimple or a bite.
BEALINGS (n) The unsavoury parts of a moat which a knight has to pour
out of his armour after being the victim of an araglin
(q.v.). In medieval France, soup made from bealins was a
very slightly sought-after delicacy.
BEAULIEU HILL (n) The optimum vantage point from which one to view people
undressing in the bedroom across the street.
BECCLES (n) The small bone buttons placed in bacon sandwiches by
unemploymed guerrilla dentist.
BEDFONT (n) A lurching sensation in the pit of the stomach experienced
at breakfast in a hotel, occasioned by the realisation that
it is about now that the chamber- maid will have discovered
the embarrassing stain on your bottom sheet.
BELDING (n) The technical name for a stallion after its first ball has been
cut off. Any notice which reads "Beware of the Belding" should be taken
very, very seriously.
BELPER (n) A knob of someone else’s chewing gum which you unexpectedly
find your hand resting on under a deks top, under the
passenger seat of your car or on somebody’s thigh under
their skirt.
BENBURB (n) The sort of man who becomes a returning officer.
BEPPU (n) The triumphant slamming shut of a book after reading the final page.
BEPTON (n) One who beams beningly after burping.
BEREPPER (n) The irrevocable and sturdy fart released in the presence of
royalty, which sounds quite like a small motorbike passing
by (but not enough to be confused with one).
BERKHAMSTED (n) The massive three-course midmorning blow-out enjoyed by a
dieter who has already done his or her slimming duty by
having a teaspoonful of cottage cheese for breakfast.
BERRIWILLOCK (n) An unknown workmate who writes "All the
best" on your going-away card.
BERY POMEROY (n) 1. The shape of a gourmet’s lips. 2. The droplet of saliva which hangs from them.
BICKERSTAFF (n) The person in an office who everyone complains
about in the pub. Many large corporations deliberately employ bickerstaffs
in each department. For example, Sir Robert Maxwell was both Chairman
and Chief Bickerstaff of the New York Daily News.
BILBSTER (n) A pimple so hideous and enormous that you have to cover it
with sticking plaster and pretend you’ve cut yourself shaving.
BINDLE (v) To slip foreign coins into a customer’s change.
BISHOP’S CAUNDLE (n) An opening gambit before a game of chess whereby the
missing pieces are replaced by small ornaments from the mantelpiece.
BLANDFORD FORUM (n) Any middle-of-the-road raido chat show.
BLEAN (n) Scientific measure of luminosity : 1 glimmer = 100,000 bleans. Usherettes’
torches are designed to produce between 2.5 and 4 bleans, enabling them to assist you
in falling down stairs,treading on people or putting your hand into a Neapolitan
tub when reaching for change.
BLITHBURY (n) A look someone gives you by which you become aware that
they’re much too drunk to have undertood anything you’ve
said to them in the last twenty minutes.
BLITTERLEES (n) The little slivers of bomboo picked off a cane chair by a
nervous guest which litter the carpet beneath and tell the
chair’s owner that the whole piece of furniture is about to
uncoil terribly and slowly until it resembles a giant pencil
sharpening.
BODMIN (n) The irrational and inevitable discrepancy between the
amount pooled and the amount needed when a large group of
people try to pay a bill together after a meal.
BOGUE (n) The expanse of skin that appears between the top of your
socks and the bottom of your trousers when you sit down.
"The Duke of Ilford threw himself onto the chesterfield, brazenly
displaying his bogues to the dowager Lady Ingatestone."
-Barbara Cartland, Come Soon, Strange Horseman
BOINKA (n) The noise through the wall that tells you that the
people next door enjoy a better sex life than you do.
BOLSOVER (n) One of those brown plastic trays with bumps on, placed
upside down in boxes of chocolates to make you thinkyou’re-getting two layers.
BONKLE (n) Of plumbing in old hotels, to make loud and unexplained
noises in the nigth, particulary at about five o’clock inthe morning.
BOOLTEENS (n) The small scatterings of foreign coins and half-p’s which
inhabit dressing tables. Since they are never used and
never thrown away boolteens account for a significant drain
on the world’s money supply.
BOOTHBY GRAFFOE (n) 1. The man in the pub who slaps people on the back as if
they were old friends, when in fact he has no friends, largely on account of
this habit. 2. Any story told by Robert Morley on chat shows.
BOSCASTLE (n) A huge pyramid of tin cans placed just inside the entrance
to a supermarket.
BOTCHERBY (n) The princible by which British roads are signposted.
BOTLEY (n) The prominent stain on a man’s trouser crotch seen on his
return from the lavatory. A botley proper is caused by an
accident with the push taps, and should not be confused with
any stain caused by insufficient waggling of the willy.
BOTOLPHS (n) Huge benign tumours which archdeacons and old chemistry
teachers affect to wear on the sides of their noses.
BOTSWANA (n) Something that is more fruitfully used for a purpose
other than that for which it was designed. A fish knife used to lever open
a stubborn can of luncheon meat is a fine example of a botswana.
BOTUSFLEMING (v) A small, long-handled steel trowel used by surgeons to
remove the contents of a patient’s nostrils prior to a sinusoperation.
BOZEMAN (n) One who spends all day loafing about near pedestrian
crossings looking as if he’s about to cross.
BRABANT (adj) Very much inclined to see how far you can push someone.
BRADFORD (n) A school teacher’s old hairy jacket, now severely
discoloured by chalk dust, ink, egg and the precipitations
of uneditying chemical reactions.
BRADWORTHY (n) One who is skilled in the art of naming loaves.
BRECKLES (n) A disease of artificial plants.
BRECON (n) That part of the toenail which is designed to snag on nylon
sheets.
BRINDLE (v) To suddenly remember where it is you’re meant to be going
after you’ve already been driving for ten minutes.
BRISBANE (n) A perfectly resonable explanation (Such as the one offered
by a person with a gurgling cough which has nothing to do
with the fact that they smoke fifty cigarettes a day.)
BRITHDIR (n) (Old Norse) The first day of winter on which your
breath condenses in the air.
BROATS (n) A pair of trousers with a career behind them. Broats are
most commonly seen on elderly retired army officers.
Orginally the broats were part of their best suit back in the
thirties; then in the fifties they were demonted and used
for gardening. Recently pensions not being what they were,
the broats have been called out of retirement and reinstated
as part of the best suit again.
BROMPTON (n) A bromton is that which is said to have been committed when
you are convinced you are about to blow off with a
resounding trumpeting noise in a public place and all that
acually slips out is a tiny ’pfpt’.
BROMSGROVE (n) Any urban environment containing a small amount of dogturd
and about forty-five tons of bent steel pylon or a lump of
concrete with holes claiming to be scuplture.
’Oh, come my dear, and come with me. And wander ’neath the bromsgrove tree’ - Betjeman.
BROUGH SOWERBY (n) One who has been working at that same desk in the same
office for fifteen years and has very much his own ideas
about why he is continually passed over for promotion.
BRUMBY (n) The fake antique plastic seal on a pretentious whisky bottle.
BRYMBO (n) The single unappetising bun left in a baker’s shop after four p.m.
BUDBY (n) A nipple clearly defined thorugh flimsy or wet matereal.
BUDE (n) A polite joke reserved for use in the presence of vicars.
BUDLE (v) To fart underwater.
BULDOO (n) a virulent red-coloured pus which genereally accompanies
clonmult (q.v.) and sandberge (q.v.)
BURBAGE (n) The sound made by a liftful of people all tring to breathe
politely through their noses.
BURES (n) The scabs on knees and elbows formed by a compulsion to
make love on cheap Habitat floor-matting.
BURLESTON (n) That peculary tuneless humming and whistling adopted by
people who are extremely angry.
BURLINGJOBB (n) A seventeenth-century crime by which excrement is thrown
into the street from a ground-floor window.
BURNT YATES (n) Condition to which yates (q.v.) will suddenly pass without
any apparent interviewing period, after the spirit of the
throckmorton (q.v.) has finally been summoned by incressant
throcking (q.v.)
BURSLEDON (n) The bluebottle one is too tired to get up and start, but
not tired enough to sleep through.
BURSLEM (n) One who goes on talking at three o’ clock in the morning
after everyone else has gone to sleep. The principal habitat of burslems is Radio 2.
BURTON COGGLES (n) A bunch of keys found in a drawer whose purpose has long
been forgotten, and which can therefore now be used only for
dropping down people’s backs as a cure for nose-bleeds.
BURWASH (n) The pleasureable cool sloosh of puddle water over the toes
of your gumboots.
BUTHIE (v) -TH- To utter the name of Mr. Booth in a high pitched voice with
the explicit intent to get him aggravated at you because you’re graduating
and he can’t do anything about it anyway.
CAARNDUNCAN (n) The high-pitched and insistent cry of the young female
human urging one of its peer group to do something
dangerous on a cliff-edge or piece of toxic waste ground.
CADOMIN (n) The ingredient in coffee creamer that rises to the surface as scum.
CAFU (n) The frustration of not being able to remember what an acronym
stands for.
CAHORS (pl. n) The rushes of emotion triggered by overheard snatches of an old song.
CAIRO (n) The noise of a spinning hubcap coming to rest.
CAIRNPAT (n) A large piece of dried dung found in mountainous terrain
above the cowline which leads the experienced tracker to
believe that hikers have recently passed.
CALICUT (adj) Determined not to let someone see how much his
inadvertent remark has hurt you.
CAMER (n) A mis-tossed caber.
CANNOCK CHASE (n) In any box of After Eight Mints, there is always a large
number of empty envelopes and no more that four or five
actual mints. The cannock chase is the process by which, no
matter which part of the box often, you will always extract
most of the empty sachets before pinning down an actual
mint, or ’cannock’. The cannock chase also occurs with people who put their
dead matches back in the matchbox, and then embarrass
themselves at parties trying to light cigarettes with three
quarters of an inch of charcoal. The term is also used to describe futile attempts to
pursue unscrupulous advertising agencies who nick your
ideas to sell chocolates with.
CANUDOS (n) The desire of married couples to see their single friends paired off.
CAVRONDISH -[cav ’ron dish]- -MK- (n) the inborn sense of timing
which enables two or more people to simultaneously start talking
about entirely different things, stop together and hesitate, say "you
go first," then begin at the same time once again. This sense is also
resposible for a similar reaction when two people are both trying to
walk through a doorway at the same time. (v) to react in response to that sense.
CHALING (ptcpl. v) Trying not to be driven up the wall by the opinions of
someone who circumstances will not allow you to argue with.
CHEB (n) An embarrassing nickname by which a fourteen-year-old boy
insists that he now wishes to be known.
CHENIES (pl. n) The last few sprigs or tassles of last Christmas’s
decoration you notice on the ceiling while lying on the
sofa on an August afternoon.
CHICAGO (n) The foul-smelling wind which precedes an underground
railway train.
CHIMBOTE (n) A newly fashionable ethnic which, however much everyone
raves about it, seems to you to have rather a lot of fish heads in it.
CHIMKENT (n) One whose life appears not to have moved on in any direction
at all when you meet him again ten years later.
CHIPPING ONGAR (n) The discust and embarrassment (or ’ongar’) felt by an
observer in the presence of a person festooned with kirbies
(q.v.) when they don’t know them well enough to tell them
to wipe them off, invariably this ’ongar’ is accompanied by
an involuntary staccato twitching of the leg (or’chipping’)
CLABBY (adj) A ’clabby’ conversation is one stuck up by a commissionare
or cleaning lady in order to avoid any futher actual work.
The opening gambit is usually designed to provoke the
maximum confusion, and therefore the longest possible
clabby conversation. It is vitaly important to learn the
correct, or ’clixby’ (q.v.), responses to a clabby gambit,
and not to get trapped by a ’ditherington’ (q.v.). For
instance, if confronted with a clabby gambit such as ’Oh,
mr Smith, I didn’t know you’d had your leg off’, the
ditherington response is ’I haven’t....’ whereas the clixby
is ’good.’
CLACKAVOID (n) Technical BBC term for a page of dialogue from Blake’s Seven.
CLACKMANNAN (n) The sound made by knocking over an elephant’s-foot
umbrella stand full of walking sticks. Hence name for a particular kind of disco drum riff.
CLATHY (adj) Nervously indecisive about how safely to dispost of a dud
lightbulb.
CLENCHWARTON (n, archaic) One who assists an exorcist by squeezing whichever part of
the possessed the exorcist deems useful.
CLIMPY (adj) Allowing yourself to be persuaded to do something
pretending to be reluctant.
CLINGMAN’S DOME (n) The condition in which it becomes impossible
to put on a tie correctly when in a hurry for an important meeting.
CLIXBY (adj) Politely rude. Bliskly vague. Firmly uninformative.
CLOATES POINT (n) The precise instant at which scrambled eggs are ready.
CLONMULT (n) A yellow ooze usually found near secretions of buldoo(q.v.) and sadberge (q.v.)
CLOVIS (q.v.) One who actually looks forward to putting up the Christma
sdecorations in the office.
CLUN (n) A leg which has gone to sleep and has to be hauled around after you.
CLUNES (pl. n) People who just won’t go.
COILANTOGLE (vulg. n) Long elasticated loop of snot which connects
a pulled bogey to a nose.
COMFYSEAT (n) -PK- The single most comfortable seat in any given
house which, once occupied, will not be given up by its occupant under threat of death.
CONDOVER (n) One who is employed to stand about all day browsing
through the magazine racks in the newsagent.
CONG (n) Stange-shaped metal utensil found at the back of the
saucepan cupboard. Many authorities believe that congs
provide conclusive proof of the existence of a now extinct
form of yellow vegetable which the Victorians used to boil
mercilessly.
COODARDY (adj) Astounded at what you’ve just managed to get away with.
CORFE (n) An object which is almost totally indistinguishable from a
newspaper, the one crucial difference being that it belongs
to somebody else and is unaccountably much more interesting
than your own - which may otherwise appear to be in all
respects identical. Though it is a rule of life that a train or other public
place may contain any number of corfes but only one
newspaper, it is quite possible to transform your own
perfectly ordinary newspaper into a corfe by the simple
expedient of letting somebody else read it.
CORFU (n) The dullest person you met during the course of your
holiday. Also the only one who failed to understand that
the exchanging of addresses at the end of a holiday is
merely a social ritual and is absolutly not an invitation
to phone you up and turn up unannounced on your doorstep
three months later.
CORRIEARKLET (n) The moment at which two people approaching from opposite
ends of a long passageway, recognice each other and
immediately pretend they haven’t. This is to avoid the
ghastly embarrassment of having to continue recognising
each other the whole length of the corridor.
(v.) corriecravie is usually employed. This is the cowardly but highly
skilled process by which both protagonists continue to
approach while keeping up the pretence that they haven’t
noticed each other - by staring furiously at their feet,
grimacing into a notebook, or studying the walls closely as
if in a mood of deep irritation.
CORRIEDOO (n) The crucial moment of false recognition in a long
passageway encouter. Though both people are perfectly well
aware that the other is approaching, they must eventually
pretend sudden recognition. They now look up with a glassy
smile, as if having spotted each other for the first time,
(and are particulary delighted to have done so) shouting
out ’Haaaaaallllloooo!’ as if to say ’Good grief!! You!!
Here!! Of all people! Will I never. Coo. Stap me vitals,etc.’
CORRIEMOILLIE (n) The dreadful sinking sensation in a long passageway
encounter when both protagonists immediately realise they
have plumped for the corriedoo (q.v.) mutch too early as
they are still a good thirty yards apart. They were
embarrased by the pretence of corriecravie (q.v.) and
decided to make use of the corriedoo because they felt
silly. This was a mistake as corrievorrie (q.v.) will make
them seem far sillier.
CORRIEMUCHLOCH (n) The kind of person who can make a complex
mess of a simple job like walking down a corridor.
CORRIEVORRIE (n) Corridor etiquette demands that once a corriedoo (q.v.) has
been declared, corrievorrie must be employed. Both
protagonists must now embellish their approach with an
embarrassing combination of waving, grinning, making idiot
faces, doing pirate impressions, and waggling the head from
side to side while holding the other person’s eyes as the
smile drips off their face, until with great relief, they
pass each other.
CORSTORPHINE (n) A very short peremptory service held in monasteries prior
to teatime to offer thanks for the benediction of digestive
biscuits.
COTTERSTOCK (n) A piece of wood used to stir paint and thereafter stored
uselessly in a shed in perpetuity.
COWCADDENS (pl. n) A set of twelve cowcaddens makes an ideal and
completely baffling wedding gift.
CRABOON (v) To shout boisterously from a cliff.
CRAIL (n. mineral) Crail is a common kind of rock or gravel found widely
across the British Isles. Each individual stone (due to an as yet undiscovered
gravtitaional property) is charged with ’negative buoyancy’. This means that
no matter how much crail you remove from the garden,
more of it will rise to the surface. Crail is much employed by
the Royal Navy for making the paperweights and ashtrays
used inside submarines.
CRANLEIGH (n) A mood of irrational irritation with everyone and everything.
CRESBARD (n) The light working lunch which Ann Hathaway used
to make for her husband.
CRIEFF (v) To agree syncophantically with a taxi driver.
CRIGIEN (n, hacking term) -AU, PK, GT- Tendency to place saving the hack above
all other concerns, usually resulting in bodily injury and/or property damage.
CRINLEIGH (n) -GT- A mood of perfectly rational irritation with everyone and everything.
CROMARTY (n) The brittle sludge which clings to the top of ketchup
bottles and plastic tomatoes in nasty cafes.
CURRY MALLET (n) A large wooden or rubber cup which poachers use to
dispatch cats or other game which they can only sell to
Indian restaurants. For particularly small cats the price
obtainable is not worth the cost of expending ammunition.
DAGRON (v) -GT- To hit the button on an elevator or vending machine several
times rapidly in the belief that it will somehow help it move faster.
DALDERBY (n) A letter to the editor made meaningless because it refers to
a previous letter he didn’t read.
DALFIBBLE (v) To spend large periods of time looking for car keys.
DALLOW (adj) Perfectly content to stare at something for no particular reason.
DALMILLING (ptcpl. v) Continually making small talk to someone who
is trying to read a book.
DALRYMPLE (n) Dalarymples are the things you pay extra for on pieces of
hand-made craftwork - the rough edges, the paint smudges
and the holes in the glazing.
DAMNAGLAUR (n) A certain facial expression which actors are required to
demonstrate their mastery of before they are allowed to
play Macbeth.
DARENTH (n) Measure = 0.0000176 mg. Defined as that amount of margarine capable of covering
one hundred slices of bread to the depth of one molecule.
This is the legal maximum allowed in sandwich bars in Greater London.
DARVEL (v) To hold out hope for a better invitation until the last possible moment.
DATTUCK (n) One who performs drum solos on his knees.
DEAL (n) The gummy substance found between damp toes.
DEAN FUNES (pl. n) Things that clergymen give opinions on that are
none of their damn business.
DEEPING ST NICHOLAS (n) What street-wise kids do at Christmas. They hide on the
rooftops waiting for Santa Claus so that if he arrives and
goes down the chimney, they can rip stuff off from his sleigh.
DELAWARE (n) The hideous stuff on the shelves of a rented house.
DES MOINES (pl. n) The two little lines which come down from your nose.
DETCHANT (n) That part of a hymn (usually a few notes at the end of a
verse) where the tune goes so high or low that you
suddenly have to change octaves to accommodate it.
DEVENTER (n) A decision that’s very hard to make because so little
depends on it, such as which way to walk around a park.
DEWLISH (n) (Of the hands or feet.) Prunelike after an overlong bath.
DIDCOT (n) The tiny oddly-shaped bit of card which a ticket inspector
cuts out of a ticket with his clipper for no apparent
reason. It is a little-known fact that the confetti atPrincess Margaret’s
wedding was made up of thousands of didcots collected
by inspectors on the Royal Train.
DIDLING (participial vb.) The process of trying to work out who
did it when reading a whodunnit, and trying to keep your
options open so that when you find out you can allow
yourself to think that you knew perfectly well who it was all along.
DILLYTOP (n) The kind of bath plug which for some unaccountable reason
is actually designed to sit on top of the hole rather than fit into it.
DINDER (v) To nod thoughtfully while someone gives you a long and
complex set of directions which you know you’re never going to remember.
DINSDALE (n) One who always plays "Chopsticks" on the piano.
DIPPLE (v) To try to remove a sticky something from one hand with the
other, thus causing it to get stuck to the other hand and
eventually to anything else you try to remove it with.
DITHERINGTON (n) Sudden access to panic experienced by one who realizes
that he is being drawn inexorably into a clabby (q.v.)
conversion, i.e. one he has no hope of enjoying, benefiting
from or understanding.
DITTISHAM (n) Any music you hear on the radio to which you have to
listen very carefully to determine whether it is an
advertising jingle or a bona fide record.
DOBWALLS (pl. n) The now hard-boiled bits of nastiness which have to be
pried off crockery by hand after it has been through a dishwasher.
DOCKERY (n) Facetious behaviour adopted by an accused man in the
mistaken belief that this will endear him to the judge.
DOGDYKE (v) Of dog-owners, to adopt the absurd pretense that the
animal shitting in the gutter is nothing to do with them.
DOLEGELLAU (n) The clump, or cluster, of bored, quietly enraged, mildly
embarrassed men waiting for their wives to come out of a
changing room in a dress shop.
DORCHESTER (n) A throaty cough by someone else so timed as to obscure the
crucial part of the rather amusing remark you’ve just made.
DORRIDGE (n) Technical term for one of the lame excuses written in very
small print on the side of packets of food or washing
powder to explain why there’s hardly anything inside.
Examples include ’Contents may have settled in transit’ and
’To keep each biscuit fresh they have been individually
wrapped in silver paper and cellophane and separated with
courrugated lining, a cardboard flap, and heavy industrial tires’.
DRAFFAN (n) An infuriating person who always manages to look much more
dashing that anyone else by turning up unshaven and hung over at a formal party.
DREBLEY (n) Name for a shop which is supposed to be witty but is in
fact wearisome, e.g. ’The Frock Exchange’, ’Hair Apparent’,etc.
DROITWICH (n) A street dance. The two partners approach from opposite
directions and try politely to get out of each other’s
way. They step to the left, step to the right, apologise,
step to the left again, apologise again, bump into each
other and repeat as often as unnecessary.
DRUMSNA (n) The earthquake that occurs when a character
in a cartoon runs into a wall.
DUBBO (n) The bruise or callus on the shoulder of someone who has
been knighted unnecessarily often.
DUBUQUE (n) A look given by a superior person to someone who has
arrived wearing the wrong sort of shoes.
DUDDO (n) The most deformed potato in any given collection of potatoes.
DUFTON (n) The last page of a document that you always leave
facedown in the photocopier and have to go to retrieve later.
DUGGLEBY (n) The person in front of you in the supermarket queue who
has just unloaded a bulging trolley on to the conveyor belt
and is now in the process of trying to work out which
pocket they left their cheque book in, and indeed which
pair of trousers.
DULEEK (n) Sudden realisation, as you lie in bed waiting for the
alarm to go off, that it should have gone off an hour ago.
DULUTH (adj) The smell of a taxi out of which people have just got.
DUNBAR (n) A highly specialised fiscal term used solely by turnstile
operatives at Regnet’s Part zoo. It refers to the variable
amount of increase in the variable gate takings on a Sunday
afternoon, caused by persons going to the zoo because they
are in love and believe that the feeling of romance will be
somehow enhanced by the smell of panther sweat and rank
incontinence in the reptile house.
DUNBOYNE (n) The moment of realisation that the train you have just
patiently watched pulling out of the station was the one
you were meant to be on.
DUNCRAGGON (n) The name of Charles Bronson’s retirement cottage.
DUNGENESS (n) The uneasy feeling that the plastic handles of the
overloaded supermarket carrier bag you are carrying are
getting steadily longer.
DUNINO (n) Someone who always wants to do whatever you want to do.
DUNOLLY (n) An improvised umbrella.
DUNSTER (n) A small child hired to bounce at dawn on the occupants of the
spare bedroom in order to save on tea and alarm clocks.
DUNTISH (adj) Mentally incapacitated by severe hangover.
EADS (pl. n) The sludgy bits in the bottom of a trash can, underneath the actual trash can liner.
EAKRING (ptcpl. v) Wondering what to do next when you’ve just stormed out of something.
EAST WITTERING (n) The same as west wittering (q.v.) only it’s you they’re
trying to get away from.
EDGBASTON (n) The spare seat-cushion carried by a London bus, which is
placed against the rear bumper when the driver wishes to
indicate that the bus has broken down. No one knows how
this charming old custom originated or how long it will
continue.
EGREGG -[E ’greg]- (v) -MK- to realize, five minutes after the moment has
passed, what it was that you wanted to say when you forgot what you
were going to say.
ELGIN (adj) Thin and haggard as a result of strenuously trying to get healthy.
ELSRICKLE (n) A bead of sweat which runs down your bottom cleavage.
ELY (n) The first, tiniest inkling you get that something,somewhere, has gone terribly wrong.
EMSWORTH (n) Measure of time and noiselessness defined as the moment
between the doors of a lift closing and it beginning to move.
ENUMCLAW (n) One of the initiation ritual of the Freemasons which
they are no longer allowed to do.
EPPING (participial vb) The futile movements of forefingers and eyebrows used when
failing to attract the attention of waiters and barmen.
EPSOM (n) An entry in a diary (such as a date or a set of initials)
or a name and address in your address book, which you
haven’t the faintest idea what it’s doing there.
EPWORTH (n) The precise value of the usefulness of epping (q.v.) It
is a little-known fact than an earlier draft of the final
line of the film Gone with the Wind had Clark Gable saying
’Frankly my dear, I don’t give an epworth’, the line being
eventually changed on the grounds that it might not be
understood in Cleveland.
ERIBOLL (n) A brown bubble of cheese containing gaseous matter which
grows on Welsh rarebit. It was Sir Alexander Flemming’s
study of eribolls which led, indirectly, to his discovery
of the fact that he didn’t like Welsh rarebit very much.
ESHER (n) One of those push tapes installed in public washrooms
enabling the user to wash their trousers without actually
getting into the basin. The most powerful esher of recent
years was ’damped down’ by Red Adair after an incredible
sixty-eight days’ fight in Manchester’s Piccadilly Station.
ESSENDINE (n) Long, slow sigh emitted by a fake leather armchair when sat upon.
ESTERHAZY (adj) (Medical term) Suffering from selective memory
loss. The virus causing this condition is thought to breed in the air-conditioning
system of the White House.
EUPHRATES (n) The bullshit with which a chairman introduces a guest speaker.
EVERSCREECH (n) The look given by a group of polite, angry people
to a rude, calm queuebarger.
EWELME (n) The smile bestowed on you by an air hostess.
EXETER (n) All light household and electrical goods contain a number
of vital components plus at least one exeter. If you’ve just mended a fuse, changed a bulb or fixed a
blender, the exeter is the small, flat or round plastic or
bakelite piece left over which means you have to undo
everything and start all over again.
FAIRYMOUNT (vb, n) Polite word for buggery.
FALSTER (n) A long-winded, dishonest and completely incredible
excuse used when the truth would have been perfectly acceptable.
FAMAGUSTA (n) The draft that whistles between two bottoms that refuse to touch.
FARDUCKMANTON (n, archaic) An ancient edict, mysteriously omitted from the Doomsday
Book, requiring that the feeding of fowl on village ponds
should be carried out equitably.
FARNHAM (n) The feeling you get about four o’clock in the afternoon
when you haven’t got enough done.
FARRANCASSIDY (n) A long and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to undo
someone’s bra.
FEAKLE (v) To make facial expressions similar to those that old
gentlemen make to young girls in the playground.
FENTONADLE (v) To lay place settings with the knives and forks
the wrong way around.
FERFER (n) One who is very excited that he’s had a better idea
than the one you’ve just suggested.
FINUGE (v) In any division of foodstuffs equally between several
people, to give yourself the extra slice left over.
FIRNEL (v) -GT- To smack your forehead quite briskly with
an open palm, after discovering that you’ve overlooked
something that should have been obvious from the start.
Applicable to hearing the solution to a mind teaser that’s
been bothering you for days, watching or reading a murder
mystery and finding out the answer, etc.
FIREBAG (n) A remark intended to cue applause at a Republican convention.
FIUNARY (n) The safe place you put something and then forget where it is.
FLADDERBEISTER (n) That part of a raincoat that trails out of a car
after you’ve closed the door on it.
FLAGLER (n) Someone who always seems to disappear into shops
when you’re walking along talking to him.
FLIMBY (n) One of those irritating handle-less slippery translucent
plastic bags you get in supermarkets which, no matter how
you hold them, always contrive to let something fall out.
FLODIGARRY (n. Scots) An ankle-length gaberdine or oilskin tarpaulin worn by
deep-sea herring fishermen in Arbroath and publicans in Glasgow.
FLOING (v, hacking term) -TK, AU, PK, GT- 1. To go crazy and scramble trying
to save a hack which is clearly doomed. 2. To pull off a physically impossible
save after someone else has already tossed another hack up, thinking that
the first one couldn’t be saved.
FLUMS (pl. n) Women who only talk to each other at parties.
FOFFARTY (adj) Unable to find the right moment to leave.
FLUTLE (v) -TH- To play the flute correctly, that is, while standing on one leg.
FOINDLE (v) To queue-jump very discreetly by working one’s way up the
line without being spotted doing so.
FORSINAIN (n, archaic) The right of the lord of the manor to molest dwarves on
their birthdays.
FOVANT (n) A taxi driver’s gesture, a raised hand pointed out of the
window which purports to mean ’thank you’ and actually
means ’fuck off out of the way’.
FRADDAM (n) The small awkward-shaped piece of cheese which remains
after grating a large regular-shaped piece of cheese and
enables you to cut your fingers.
FRAMLINGHAM (n) A kind of burglar alarm usage. It is cunningly designed so
that it can ring at full volume in the street without
apparently disturbing anyone. Other types of framlingams are burglar alarms fitted to
business premises in residential areas, which go off as a
matter of regular routine at 5.31 p.m. on a Friday evening
and do not get turned off til 9.20 a.m. on Monday morning.
FRANT (n) Measure. The legal minimum distance between two trains on
the District and Circle line of the London Underground. A
frant, which must be not less than 122 chains (or 8
leagues) long, is not connected in any way with the
adjective ’frantic’ which comes to us by a completely
different route (as indeed do the trains).
FRATING GREEN (adj) The shade of green which is supposed to make you feel
comfortable in hospitals, industrious in schools and uneasy in police stations.
FREMANTLE (v) To steal things not worth the bother of stealing. One steals
cars, money and silver. Book matches, airline eye patches and individual
pots of apricot jam are merely fremantled.
FRIMLEY (n) Exaggerated carefree saunter adopted by Norman Wisdom as
an immediate prelude to dropping down an open manhole.
FRING (n) The noise made by light bulb which has just shone its last.
FRIOL (n) -GT- The act of glancing upward after something unexpected
happens (dimming of lights, hearing a strange noise, etc.), as if looking
at the ceiling will somehow explain what happened.
FRITHAM (n) A paragraph that you get stuck on in a book. The more
often you read it through the less it means to you.
FROLESWORTH (n) Measure. The minimum time it is necessary to spend
frowning in deep concentration at each picture in an art
gallery so that everyone else doesn’t think you’re a complete moron.
FROPPIN (n) -TK- College student who is willing to major in anything if it
means (s)he can avoid having class before noon.
FROSSES (pl. n) The lecherous looks exchanged between sixteen-year-olds at
a party given by someone’s parents.
FRUTAL (adj) Rather too eager to be cruel to be kind.
FULKING (participial vb) Pretending not to be in when the carol-singers come round.
GAFFNEY (n) Someone who deliberately misunderstands things
for, he hopes, humorous effect.
GALASHIELS (pl. n) A form of particularly long sparse sideburns which are part
of the mandatory uniform of British Rail guards.
GALLIPOLI (adj) Of the behaviour of a bottom lip trying to spit mouthwash
after an injection at the dentist. Hence, loose, floppy, useless.
’She went suddenly Gallipoli in his arms’ - Noel Coward.
GAMMERSGILL (n) Embarrassed stammer you emit when a voice answers
the phone and you realize you haven’t the faintest idea of who it
is you’ve just called.
GANGES (n. rare : colonial Indian) Leg-rash contracted from playing too much polo. (It is a
little-known fact that Prince Charles is troubled by ganges
down the inside of his arms.)
GARROW (n) Narrow wiggly furrow left after pulling a hair off a painted surface.
GARTNESS (n) The ability to say, "No, there’s absolutely nothing the
matter, what could possibly be the matter? And anyway, I don’t want
to discuss it," without moving the lips.
GARVOCK (n) The action of putting your finger in your cheek and
flicking it out with a "pock" noise.
GASTARD (n) Useful specially new-coined word for an illegitimate child
(in order to distinguish it from someone who merely carves
you up on the motorway, etc.)
GENOTTE (v) -TK- To spin around and quickly survey one’s surroundings, in a
moment of extreme paranoia.
GHENT (adj) Descriptive of the mood indicated by cartoonists by drawing
a cartoon character’s mouth as a wavy line.
GIGNOG (n) Someone who, through the injudicious appplication of alcohol,
is now a great deal less funny than he thinks he is.
GILDERSOME (adj) Descriptive of a joke someone tells you which starts well,
but which becomes so embellished in the telling that you
start to weary of it after scarcely half an hour.
GILGIT (n) Hidden sharply pointed object which stabs you in the cuticle
when you reach into a small pot.
GILLING (n) The warm tingling you get in your feet when having a really good piddle.
GIPPING (participial vb) The fish-like opening and closing of the jaws seen amongst
people who have recently been to the dentist and are
puzzled as to whether their teeth have been put back the
right way up.
GLASGOW (n) The feeling of infinite sadness engendered when walking
through a place filled with happy people fifteen years
younger than yourself.
GLASSEL (n) A seaside pebble which was shiny and interesting when wet,
and which is now a lump of rock, which children
nevertheless insist on filing their suitcases with after the holiday.
GLAZELEY (adj) The state of a barrister’s flat greasy hair after wearing
a wig all day.
GLEMENUILT (n) The kind of guilt which you’d completely forgotten about
which comes roaring back on discovering an old letter in a cupboard.
GLENDUCKIE (n) Any Scottish actor who wears a cravat.
GLENTAGGART (n) A particular kind of tartan hold-all, made exclusive under
license for British Airways. When waiting to collect your luggage from an airport
conveyour belt, you will notice that on the next consingle,
solitary bag going round and round uncollected. This is a
glentaggart, which has been placed there by the
baggage-handling staff to take your mind off the fact that
your own luggage will shortly be landing in Murmansk.
GLENTIES (pl. n) Series of small steps by which someone who has made a
serious tactical error in a conversion or argument moves
from complete disagreement to wholehearted agreement.
GLENWHILLY (n. Scots) A small tartan pouch worn beneath the kilt during the
thistle-harvest.
GLINROSS (v) -TK- To smile innocently and watch one’s friends scramble
around looking for a hack, while said object is in one’s pocket.
GLINSK (n) A hat which politicians buy to go to Russia in.
GLORORUM (n) One who takes pleasure in informing others about their
bowel movements.
GLOSSOP (n) A rouge blob of food. Glossops, which are generally streaming hot and highly
adhesive invariably fall off your spoon and on to the
surface of your host’s highly polished antique-rosewood
dining table. If this has not, or may not have, been
noticed by the company present, swanage (q.v.) may be
employed.
GLUD (n) The pinkish mulch found in the bottom of a lady’s handbag.
GLUTT LODGE (n) The place where food can be stored after having a tooth
extracted. Some Arabs can go without sustenance for up to
six weeks on a full glutt lodge, hence the expression ’the
shit of the dessert’.
GLOADBY MARWOOD (n) Someone who stops John Cleese on the street and demands
that he does a silly walk.
GODALMING (n) Wonderful rush of relief on discovering that the ely
(q.v.) and the wembley (q.v.) were in fact false alarms.
GOGINAN (n) The piece of adhesive tape on a nearsighted child’s spectacles.
GOLANT (adj) Blank, sly and faintly embarrassed. Pertaining to the
expression seen on the face of someone who has clearly
forgotten your name.
GONNABARN (n) An afternoon wasted on watching an old movie on TV.
GOOLE (n) The puddle on the bar into which the barman puts your change.
GOOSECRUIVES (pl. n. archaic) A pair of wooden trousers worn by poultry-keepers in the
Middle Ages.
GOOSNARGH (n) Something left over from preparing or eating a meal, which
you store in the fridge despite the fact that you know full well you will
never ever use it.
GRAGGLE -[’grA gle]- -MK- (v) to fail to think of something to talk about,
generally said when speaking of a group of people that has just suddenly
and inexplicably fallen silent, but applicable to any conversation
GREAT TOSSON (n) A fat book containing four words and six cartoons which
cost £6.95.
GREAT WAKERING (participial vb.) Panic which sets in when you badly need to go to the
lavatory and cannot make up your mind about what book or
magazine to take with you.
GREELEY (n) Someone who continually annoys you by continually
apologising for annoying you.
GRESS (v, rare) To stick to the point during a family argument.
GRETNA GREEN (adj) A shade of green which cartoon characters dangle over the
edge of a cliff.
GRIBUN (n) The person in a crisis who can always be relied on to make a
good anecdote out of it.
GRIMBISTER (n) Large body of cars on a highway all traveling at exactly
the speed limit because one of them is a police car.
GRIMMET (n) A small bush from which cartoon characters dangle over the
edge of a cliff.
GRIMSBY (n) A lump of something gristly and foul-tasting concealed in a
mouthful of stew or pie. Grimsbies are sometimes merely the result of careless
cookery, but more often they are placed there deliberately
by Freemasons. Grimbies can be purchased in bulk from any
respectable Masonic butcher on giving him the secret
Masonic handbag. One is then placed correct masonic method
of dealing with it. If the guest is not a Mason, the host
may find it entertaining to watch how he handles the
obnoxious object. It may be (a) manfully swallowed, invariably bringing tears to the
eyes. (b) chewed with resolution for up to twenty minutes before
eventually resorting to method (a) (c) choked on fatally. The Masonic
handshake is easily recognised by another Mason incidentally, for
by it a used grimsby is passed from hand to hand. The secret Masonic
method for dealing with a grimsby is a sfollows : remove it carefully with
the silver tongsprovided, using the left hand. Cross the room to your host,
hopping on one leg, and ram the grimsby firmly up his nose,
shouting, ’Take that, you smug Masonic bastard.’
GRINSTEAD (n) The state of a lady’s clothing after she has been to
powder her nose and has hitched up her tights over her
skirt at the back, thus exposing her bottom, and has walked
out without noticing it.
GROBISTER (n) One who continually and publicly rearranges
the position of his genitals.
GRONG (v, hacking term) -AU, PK, GT- To accidentally crash into or kick one or more
people as a result of everyone going for the hack at the same time. Opposite of voidage (q.v.).
GRUIDS (n) The only bits of an animal left after even the people who make
sausage rolls have been at it.
GRUTNESS (n) The resolve with which the Queen sits through five days
of Polynesian folk dancing.
GUBBLECOTE (n) Deformation of the palate caused by biting into too many Toblerones.
GUERNSEY (adj) Queasy but unbowed. The kind of feeling one gets when
discovering a plastic compartment in a fridge in which
things are growing.
GULBERWICK (n) The small particle that you always think you’ve
got stuck in the back of your throat after you’ve been sick.
GUSSAGE (n) Dress-making talk.
GWEEK (n) A coat hanger recycled as a car antenna
.
HADWEENZIC (adj) Resistant to tweezers.
HADZOR (n) A sharp instrument placed in the washing-up bowl which
makes it easier to cut yourself.\
HAGNABY (n) Someone who looked a lot more attractive in the disco than
they do in your bed the next morning.
HALCRO (n) An adhesive fibrous cloth used to hold babies’ clothes
together. Thousands of tiny pieces of jam ’hook’ on to
thousands of tiny-pieces of dribble, enabling the cloth to
become ’sticky’.
HALIFAX (n) The green synthetic astroturf on which greengrocers
display their vegetables.
HALSPILL (n) The name for the adventurous partygoers who don’t
spend the whole time in the kitchen.
HAMBLEDON (n) The sound of a single-engined aircraft flying by, heard
whilst lying in a summer field in England, which somehow
concentrates the silence and sense of space and
timelessness and leaves one with a profound feeling of
something or other.
HANKATE (adj) Congenially incapable of ever having a paper tissue.
HAPPAS (n) The amusement caused by passport photos.
HAPPLE (v) To annoy people by finishing their sentences for them and
then telling them what they really meant to say.
HARBLEDOWN (v) To maneuver a double mattress down a winding staircase.
HARBOTTLE (n) A particular kind of fly which lives inside double
glazing.
HARLOSH (v) To redistribute the hot water in a bath.
HARMANGER (n) The person who takes the blame while the manager
you demanded to see hides in his office.
HARPENDEN (n) The coda to a phone conversion, consisting of about eight
exchanges, by which people try gracefully to get off the line.
HASELBURY PLUCKNETT (n) A mechanical device for cleaning combs invented during the
industrial revolution at the same time as Arkwright’s
Spinning Jenny, but which didn’t catch on in the same way.
HASSOP (n) The pocket down the back of an armchair used for storing
two-shilling bits and pieces of Lego.
HASTINGS (pl. n) Things said on the spur of the moment to explain to
someone who unexpectedly comes into a room precisely what
it is you are doing.
HATHERSAGE (n) The tiny snippets of beard which coat the inside of a
washbasin after shaving in it.
HAUGHAM (n) One who loudly informs other diners in a restaurant what
kind of man he is by calling for the chef by his Christian
name from the lobby.
HAXBY (n) Any garden implement found in a potting shed whose exact
purpose is unclear.
HEANTON PUNCHARDON (n) A violent argument which breaks out in the car
on the way home from a party between a couple who have had to be
polite to each other in company all evening.
HENSTRIDGE (n) The dried yellow substance found between the prongs of
forks in restaurants.
HEPPLE (v) To sculpt the contents of a sugar bowl.
HERSTMONCEUX (n) The correct name for the gold medallion worn by someone
who is in the habit of wearing their shirt open to the waist.
HESSLE (v) To try to sort out which sleeve of a sweater is inside out when
you’re already halfway through putting it on.
HEVER (n) The panic caused by half-hearing Tannoy in an airport.
HEWISH (adj) In a mood to swipe at vegeation with a stick.
HEXTABLE (n) The record you find in someone else’s collection which
instantly tells you you could never go out with them.
HIBBING (n) The marks left on the outside breast pocket of a
storekeeper’s overall where he has put away his pen and missed.
HICKLING (participial vb) The practice of infuriating theatregoers by not only
arriving late to a centre-row seat, but also loudly
apologising to and patting each member of the audience in turn.
HIDCOTE BARTRAM (n) To be caught in a hidcote bartram is to say a series of
protracted and final goodbyes to a group of people, leave
the house and then realise you’ve left your hat behind.
HIGH LIMERIGG (n) The topmost tread of a staircase which disappears when
you’ve climbing the stairs in the darkness.
HIGH OFFLEY (n) Gossnargh (q.v.) three weeks later.
HOBARRIS (n, medical) A sperm which carries a high risk of becoming a bank manager.
HOBBS CROSS (n) The awkward leaping maneuver a girl has to go through
in bed in order to make him sleep on the wet patch.
HODDLESDEN (n) An ’injured’ footballer’s limp back into the game which
draws applause but doesn’t fool anybody.
HODNET (n) The wooden safety platform supported by scaffolding round a
building under construction from which the builders (at
almost no personal risk) can drop pieces of cement on
passers-by.
HOFF (v) To deny indignantly something which is palpably true.
HOGGESTON (n) The action of overshaking a pair of dice in a cup in the
mistaken belief that this will affect the eventual outcome
in your favour and not irritate everyone else.
HORDLE (v) To dissemble in a fruity manner, like William F. Buckley.
HORTON-CUM-STUDLEY (n) The combination of little helpful grunts, nodding
movements of the head, considerate smiles, upward frowns
and serious pauses that a group of people join in making in
trying to elicit the next pronouncement of somebody with a
dreadful stutter.
HOSMER (v) Of a TV newsreader, to continue to stare impassively into
the camera when it should have already switched to somebody else.
HOTAGEN (n) The aggressiveness with which a shop assistant sells you
any piece of high technology which they don’t understand themselves.
HOVE (adj) Descriptive of the expression seen on the face of one person
in the presence of another who clearly isn’t going to stop
talking for a very long time.
HOYLAKE (n) The pool of edible gravy which surrounds an inedible and
disgusting lump of meat - eaten to give the impression that
the person is ’just not very hungry, but mmm this is
delicious’. Cf. Peaslake - a similar experience had by vegetarians.
HRUMBLE (n) -TK- 1. The agonizing internal debate one has when one is settled
extremely comfortably under the covers of one’s bed, yet one has to use
the lavatory. -AU- 2. The extreme need to use the lavatory facilities
immediately after putting on 5 pounds of snow gear.
HUBY (n) A half-erection large enough to be a publicly embarrassing
bulge in the trousers, not large enough to be of any use to anybody.
HUCKNALL (v) To crouch upwards: as in the movement of a seated person’s
feet and legs made in order to allow a cleaner’s sweeper to pass beneath them.
HUGGLESCOTE (n) Someone who excitedly opens a letter that says, "You
may have already won £10,000" on the outside.
HULL (adj) Descriptive of the smell of a weekend cottage.
HUMBER (v) To move like the cheeks of a very fat person as their car
goes over a cattle grid.
HUMBY (n) An erection which won’t go down when a gentleman has to go
for a pee in the middle of making love to someone.
HUNA (n) The result of coming to the wrong decision.
HUNSINGORE (n) Medieval ceremonial brass horn with which the successful
execution of an araglin (q.v.) is trumpeted from the castle battlements.
HUTLERBURN (n, archaic) A burn sustained as a result of the behaviour of a clumsy
hutler. (The precise duties of hutlers are not lost in the
mists of history.)
HUTTOFT (n) The fibrous algae which grows in the dark, moist
environment of trouser turn-ups.
HYNISH (adj) Descriptive of the state of mind in which you might as
well give up doing whatever it is you’re trying to do because you’ll only muck it up.
IBLE (adj) Clever but lazy.
IBSTOCK (n) Anything used to make a noise on a corrugated iron wall or
clinker-built fence by dragging it along the surface while
walking past it. ’Mr Bennett thoughtfully selected a stou
tibstock and left the house.’ - Jane Austen, Pride andPrejudice, II.
IMBER (v) To lean from side to side while watching a car chase at the movies.
INIGONISH (adj) Descriptive of the expression on the face of a dinner
party guest which is meant to indicate huge enjoyment to the hosts and
"time to go home, I think" to your partner. An inigonish is usually the
prelude to a heanton punchardon (q.v.).
INVERINATE (v) To spot that both people in a heated argument are
talking complete rubbish.
INVERKEITHING (ptcpl. v) Addressing someone by mumble because
you can only remember the first letter of their name.
IPING (participial vb) The increasingly anxious shifting from leg to leg you go
through when you are desperate to go to the lavatory and
the person you are talking to keeps on remembering a few
final things he want to mention.
IPPLEPEN (n) A useless writing implement made by taping six ballpoint
pens together, which is supposed to make it easier to write one hundred lines.
IPSWICH (n) The sound at the other end of the telephone which tells
you that the automatic exchange is working very hard but is
intending not actually to connect you this time, merely to
let you know how difficult it is.
ISLESTEPS (pl. n) Cautious movements toward the bathroom
in a strange house in the dark.
JALINGO (n) The alacrity with which a grimbister (q.v.) breaks up
as soon as the police car heads somewhere else.
JARROW (adj) An agricultural device which, when towed behind a tractor,
enables the farmer to spread his dung evenly across the width of the road.
JAWCRAIG (n, medical) A massive facial spasm which is brought on by being told a
really astounding piece of news. A mysterious attack of jawcraig affected 40,000 sheep in
Wales in 1952.
JAWF (n) Conversation between two soccer hooligans on a train.
JEFFERS (pl. n) Persons who honestly believe that a business lunch
is going to achieve anything.
JID (n) The piece of paper on top of the jam inside the jam jar.
JOFANE (adj) In breach of the laws of joke telling, e.g., giving away
the punch line in advance.
JOLIETTE (n) (Old French) Polite word for a well-proportioned dog turd.
JOPLIN (n) The material from which all the clothes in Woolworth’s are made.
JUBONES (pl. n) Awful things bought in Nairobi that never look good at home.
JURBY (n) A loose woolen garment reaching to the knees and with three or more arm
holes, knitted by the wearer’s well-meaning but incompetent aunt.
JUWAIN (adj) Only slightly relevant to the matter at hand.
KABWUM (n) The cutesy humming noise people make as they go to
kiss someone on the cheek.
KALAMI (n) The ancient Eastern art of being able to fold road-maps
properly.
KANTURK (n) An extremely intricate knot originally used for belaying the
topgallant foresheets of a gaff-rigged China clipper, and
now more commonly observed when trying to get an old kite
out of the cupboard under the stairs.
KEELE (adj) The horrible smell caused by washing ashtrays.
KELLING (participial vb) A person searching for something, who has reached the
futile stage of re-looking in all the places they have
looked once already, is said to be kelling.
KENILWORTH (n) A measure. Defined as that proportion of a menu which
the waiter speaks that you can actually remember.
KENT (adj) Politely determined not to help despite a violent urge to
the contrary. Kent expressions are seen on the faces of people who are
good at something watching someone else who can’t do it atall.
KENTUCKEY (adv) Fitting exactly and satisfyingly. The cardboard box that
slides neatly into an exact space in a garage, or the last book which exactly fills a
bookshelf, is said to fit ’real nice and kentuckey’.
KERRY (n) The small twist of skin which separated each sausage on a string.
KETTERING (n) The marks left on your bottom or thighs after sunbathing
on a wickerwork chair.
KETTLENESS (adj) The quality of not being able to pee while being watched.
KIBBLESWORTH (n) The footling amount of money by which the price of a given
article in a shop is less than a sensible number, in a vain
hope that at least one idiot will think it cheap. For
instance, the kibblesworth on a pair of shoes priced at£19.99 is 1p.
KILVAXTER (n) A pen kept in the desk tidy that never works.
KIMMERIDGE (n) The light breeze which blows through your armpit hair when
you are stretched out sunbathing.
KINGSTON BAGPUISE (n) A forty-year-old overweight man trying to commit
suicide by jogging.
KIRBY (n) Small but repulsive piece of food prominently attached t
oa person’s face or clothing; See also CHIPPING ONGAR.
KIRBY MISPERTON (n) One who kindly attempts to wipe an apparent kirby (q.v.)
off another’s face with a napkin, and then discovers it to
be a wart or other permanent fixture, is said to have
committed a ’kirby misperton’.
KITMURVY (n) Man who owns all the latest sporting gadgetry and clothing
(gold trolley, tee cozies, ventilated shoes, Gary Player- autographed track
suit top, American navy cap, mirror sunglasses) but is still only
on his second gold lesson.
KITTYBREWSTER (n) The girl who always offers to make the tea.
KLOKRIP (n) -TK- The signal one makes to alert one’s friends that one needs
to be rescued from a particularly bad conversation or situation.
KLOSTERS (pl. n) The little blobs of dried urine on the rim of the bowl under the seat.
KNAPTOFT (n) The mysterious fluff placed in your pockets by
dry-cleaning firms.
KOWLOON (n) One who goes to an Indian restaurant and orders an omelette.
KRANKLE (v) -TK- to attempt , generally in vain, to open a car door by
lifting up on the handle at the precise moment another tries to unlock
the vehicle.
KROLENG (v) -GT- To go to a store and buy every one of a certain
item, knowing that someone is going to come along in a couple
minutes looking for it.
KRULATE (v) -TK- To smack, kick, punch, lunge at or whip a hack at
someone for attaching unnecessary suffixes to words.
KURDISTAN (n) Hard stare given by a husband to his wife when he notices
a sharp increase in the number of times he answers the
phone to be told, ’Sorry, wrong number.’
LACKAWANNA (n) The inability of a New York cab driver to know
where, for instance, Central Park is.
LAMBARENE (adj) Feeling better for having put pajamas on.
LAMLASH (n) The folder on hotel dressing-tables full of astoundingly
dull information.
LAMPETER (n) The fifth member of a foursome.
LAMPUNG (n) The daze which follows turning on the light in the middle of the night.
LANCREIGH (n) -AU- A mood of irrational happiness with everyone and everything.
LARGOWARD (n) Motorists’ name for the kind of pedestrian who stands
beside a main road and waves on the traffic, as if it’s
their right of way.
LE TOUQUET (n) A mere nothing, an unconsidered trifle, a negligible
amount. Un touquet is often defined as the difference
between the cost of a bottle of gin bought in an
off-license and one bought in a duty-free shop.
LEAZES (pl. n) Irritating pains that your doctor tells you not
to be so upset about.
LEEMING (ptcpl. v) The business of making silly faces at babies.
LEMVIG (n) A person who can be relied upon to be doing worse than you.
LIBENGE (n) Crystallized deposits of old cough mixture.
LIBODE (adj) Being undecided about whether or not you feel sexually attracted to someone.
LIFF (n) 1. A book, the contents of which are totally belied by its
cover. For instance, any book the dust jacket of which
bears the words ’This book will change your life’.
2. A common object or experience for whoch no word yet exists.
LIMASSOL (n) The correct name for one of those little paper umbrellas
which come in cocktails with too much pineapple juice in them.
LIMERIGG (v) To jar one’s leg as the result of the disappearance of a
stair which isn’t there in the darkness.
LINDATE (v) -TK- 1.To spend a completely unreasonable period of time giving
one’s server detailed instructions on the preparation of one’s meal. 2.
To spend half an hour debating the merits of the soup, the salad, and
the soup-and-salad bar, only to decide one doesn’t actually want any of
it.
LINDISFARNE (adj) Descriptive of the pleasant smell of an empty biscuit tin.
LINGLE (v) To touch battery terminals with one’s tongue.
LINICLATE (adj) All stiff and achy in the morning and trying to remember why.
LISTOWEL (n) The small mat on the bar designed to be more absorbent than
the bar, but not as absorbent as your elbows.
LITTLE URSWICK (n) The member of any class who most inclines a teacher
towards the view that capital punishment should be
introduced in schools.
LLANELLI (adj) Descriptive of the waggling movement of a person’s hands
when shaking water from them or warming up for a piece of
workshop theatre.
LOBERIA (n) Unshakable belief that your ears stick out.
LOCHRANZA (n) The long unaccomplished wail in the middle of a Scottish
folk song where the pipes nip around the corner for a couple of drinks.
LOLLAND (n) A person with a low threshold of boredom.
LONGNIDDRY (n) A droplet which persists in running out of your nose.
LOSSIEMOUTH (n) One of those middle-aged ladies with just a hint of a
luxuriant handlebar mustache.
LOSTWITHIEL (n) The deep and peaceful sleep you finally fall into two
minutes before the alarm goes off.
LOUTH (n) The sort of man who wears loud check jackets, has a
personalised tankard behind the bar and always gets servedbefore you do.
LOW ARDWELL (n) Seductive remark made hopefully in the back of a taxi.
LOW EGGBOROUGH (n) A quiet little unregarded man in glasses who is building a
new kind of atomic bomb in his garden shed.
LOWER PEOVER (n) Common solution to the problems of a humby (q.v.)
LOWESTOFT (n) (a) The balls of wool which collect on nice new sweaters. (b) The
correct name for ’navel fluff’.
LOWTHER (v) Of a large group of people who have been to the cinema
together, o stand aimlessly about on the pavement and
argue about whether to go and eat either a Chinese meal
nearby or an Indian meal at a restaurant which somebody says
is very good but isn’t certain where it is, or have a drink
and think about it, or just go home, or have a Chinese meal
nearby - until by the time agreement is reached everything
is shut.
LUBCROY (n) The telltale little lump in the top of your swimming
trunks which tells you you are going to have to spend half
an hour with a safety pin trying to pull the drawstring out
again.
LUBLIN (n) The bit of somebody’s body which their partner particularly likes.
LUDLOW (n) A wad of newspaper, folded table napkin or lump of cardboard
put under a wobbly table or chair to make it stand up
straight. It is perhaps not widely known that air-ace Sir Douglas
Bader used to get about on an enormous pair of ludlows
before he had his artificial legs fitted.
LUFFENHAM (n) Feeling you get when the pubs aren’t going to be open for
another forty-five minutes and the luffness is beginning to
wear a bit thin.
LUFFNESS (n) Hearty feeling that comes from walking on the moors with
gumboots and cold ears.
LULWORTH (n) Measure of conversation. A lulworth defines the amount of the length, loudness and
embarrassment of a statement you make when everyone else in
the room unaccountably stops talking at the same time.
LUPPIT (n) The piece of leather which hangs off the bottom of your
shoe before you can be bothered to get it mended.
LUPRIDGE (n) A bubble behind a piece of wallpaper.
LUSBY (n) The fold of flesh pushing forward over the top of a bra
which is too small for the lady inside it.
LUTON (n) The horseshoe-shaped rug which goes around a lavatory seat.
LUTTON GOWTS (n) The opposite of green thumbs; the effortless
capacity to cause death of plants.
LYBSTER (n, vb) The artificial chuckle in the voice-over at the end of a
supposedly funny television commercial.
LYDD (n) A lid. A lydd differs from a lid in that it had nothing to be a lid
of, is at least eighteen months old, and is sold in Ye Olde Antique Shoppes.
LYDIARD TREGOZE (n) The opposite of a mavis enderby (q.v.) An unrequited early
love of your life who still causes terrible pangs though
she inexplicably married a telephone engineer.
LYMINSTER (n) A homosexual vicar.
LYNWILG (n) One of those things that pulls the electric cord back into a vacuum cleaner.
MAARUIG (n) The inexpressible horror experienced on walking up in the
morning and remembering that you are still Scotty in Star Trek.
Pronounced loudly, as if in pain.
MACROY (n) An authoritative, confident opinion based on one you read in a newspaper.
MALAYBALAY (adj) All excited at suddenly remembering a wonderful piece
of gossip that you want to pass on to somebody.
MALIBU (n) The height by which the top of a wave exceeds the height
to which you have rolled up your trousers.
MANITOBA (n) A recourtship ritual. The tentative and reluctant touching
of spouses’ toes in bed after a fight.
MANKINHOLES (pl. n) The small holes in a loaf of bread which give rise to the
momentary suspicion that something may have made its home within.
MAPLEDURHAM (n) A hideous piece of chipboard veneer furniture bought in a
suburban highstreet furniture store and designed to hold
exactly a year’s supply of Sunday colour supplements.
MARGARETTING TYE (n) The unexpectedly intimate bond that forms
between two people you introduce to each other, who then exclude you.
MARGATE (n) A margate is a particular kind of commissionaire who sees
you every day and is on cheerful Christian-name terms with
you, then one day refuses to let you in because you’ve
forgotten your identify card.
MARKET DEEPING (participial vb) Stealing one piece of fruit from a street fruit-and-vegetable stall.
MARLOW (n) The bottom drawer in the kitchen your mother keeps her
paper bags in.
MARYTAVY (n) A person to whom, under dire injuctions of silence, you
tell a secret which you wish to be fare more widely known.
MASBERRY (n) The sap of a giant Nigerian tree from which all cafeteria jams are made.
MASSACHUSETTS (pl. n) Those items and particles which people who, after blowing
their noses, are searching for when they look into their hankies.
MATCHING GREEN (adj) (Of neckties.) Any colour which Nigel Rees rejects as
unsuitable for his trousers or jacket.
MAVESYN RIDWARE (n) The stuff belonging to a mavis enderby (q.v.)
that keeps turning up in odd corners of your house.
MAVIS ENDERBY (n) The almost-completely-forgotten girlfriend from your
distant past for whom your wife has a completely irrationa
ljealousy and hatred.
MAYNOOTH (n) One who recklessly tells total strnager to cheer
up, it may never happen.
MEADLE (v) To blunder around a woman’s breasts in a way that does
absolutely nothing for her.
MEATH (adj) Warm and very slightly clammy. Descriptive of the texture of your hands after the
automatic drying machine has turned itself off, just damp
enough to make it embarrassing if you have to shake hands
with someone immediately afterwards.
MEATHOP (n) One who sets off for the scene of an aircraft crash with a
picnic hamper.
MEETH (n) Something which American doctors will shortly tell us we
are all suffering from.
MELBURY BUBB (n) A TV celebrity who rises to fame by being extremely camp.
MELCOMBE REGIS (n) The name of the style of decoration used in cocktail
lounges in mock Tudor hotels in Surrey.
MELLON UDRIGLE (n) The ghastly sound made by traditional folksingers.
MELTON CONSTABLE (n) A patent anti-wrinkle cream which policemen wear to keep
themselves looking young.
MEMPHIS (n) The little bits of yellow fluff which get trapped in the
hinge of the windshield wipers after polishing the car witha new duster.
MEMUS (n) The little trick people use to remind themselves which is
left and which is right.
MEUSE (n) A period of complete silence on the radio, which means
that it must be tuned to NPR.
MILLINOCKET (n) The thing that rattles around inside an aerosol can.
MILWAUKEE (n) The melodious whistling, chanting and humming tone of the
milwaukee can be heard whenever a public lavatory is
entered. It is the way the occupants of the cubicles have
of telling you there’s no lock on their door and you can’t come in.
MIMBRIDGE (n) That which two very boring people have in common which
enables you to get away from them.
MINCHINHAMPTON (n) The expression on a man’s face when he has just zipped up
his trousers without due care and attention.
MOFFAT (n, tailoring term) That part of your coat which is designed to be sat on by
the person next of you on the bus.
MOGUMBER (n) One who goes around complaining that he was cleverer ten years ago.
MOLESBY (n) The kind of family that drives to the seaside and then
sits in the car with all the windows closed, reading the
Sunday Express and wearing sidcups (q.v.)
MONKS TOFT (n) The bundle of hair which is left after a monk has been
tonsured, which he keeps tired up with a rubber band and
uses for chasing ants away.
MORANGIE (adj) Faintly nervous that a particular post box "won’t
work" when mailing an important letter.
MOTSPUR (n) The fourth wheel of a supermarket trolley which looks
identical to the other three but renders the trolley completely uncontrollable.
MO I RANA (n, state of being) Imagine being on a vacation, and it’s raining all the
time, you are driving and the kids are making you a nervous
wreck. Well you are definitely in Mo i Rana.
MUGEARY (n, medical) The substance from which the unpleasant little yellow
globules in the corners of a sleepy person’s eyes are made.
MULTAN (n) An infidel who stains his face with walnut juice in order
to enter Mecca or appear in a sitcom.
MUNDERFIELD (n) A meadow selected, whilst driving past, as being ideal for
a picnic which, from a sitting position, turns out to be
full of stubble, dust and cowpats, and almost impossible to
enjoy yourself in.
MUNSTER (n) A person who continually brings up the subject of property prices.
NAAS (n) The windmaking region of Albania where most of the wine
that people take to bottle-parties comes from.
NACTON (n) The ’n’ with which cheap advertising copywriters replace
the word ’and’ (as in ’fish ’n’ chips’, ’mix ’n’ match’,
’assault ’n’ battery’), in the mistaken belief that this is
in some way chummy or endearing.
NAD (n) Measure defined as the distance between a driver’s
outstretched fingertips and the ticket machine in an
automatic car-park. 1 nad = 18.4 cm.
NAMBER (v) To hang around the table being too shy to sit next to
the person you really want to.
NANHORON (n, medical) A tiny valve concealed in the inner ear which enables a
deaf grandmother to converse quite normally when she feels
like it, but which excludes completely anything that sounds
like a request to help with laying the table.
NANTUCKET (n) The secret pocket which eats your train ticket.
NANTWICH (n) A late-night snack, invented by the Earl of Nantwich,
which consists of the dampest thing in the fridge, pressed
between two of the driest things in the fridge. The Earl,
who lived in a flat in Clapham, invented the nantwich to
avoid having to go shopping.
NAPLES (pl. n) The tiny depression in a piece of Ryvita.
NASEBY (n) The stout metal instrument used for clipping labels onto
exhibits at flower shows.
NAUGATUCK (n) A plastic sachet containing shampoo, polyfilla, etc.,
which is impossible to open except by off the corners.
NAZEING (participial vb) The rather unconvincing noises of pretended interest which
an adult has to make when brought a small dull object for
admiration by a child.
NEEN SOLLARS (pl. n) Any ensemble of especially unflattering and particular
garments worn by a woman which tell you that she is right
at the forefront of fashion.
NEMPNETT THRUBWELL (n) The feeling experienced when driving off for the first
time on a brand new motorbike.
NETHER POPPLETON (n. obs.) A pair of P.J.Proby’s trousers.
NIMZARK (n) -GT, MK- Person who spoils a perfectly well-thought-out
plan by suddenly having some obligation the same day.
NINDIGULLY (n) One who constantly needs to be repersuaded of
something they’ve already agreed to.
NIPISHISH (adj) Descriptive of a person walking barefoot on gravel.
NOAK HOAK (n) A driver who signals left and turns right.
NOGDAM END (n) That part of a pair of scissors used to bang in a picture hook.
NOKOMIS (n) One who dresses like an ethnic minority to which they do not belong.
NOME (sfx) Latin suffix meaning: question expecting the answer "Oh
really? How interesting."
NOSSOB (n) Any word that look as if it’s probably another word
backwards but turns out not to be.
NOTTAGE (n) Nottage is the collective name for things which you find a
use for immediately after you’ve thrown them away. For instance, your
greenhouse has been cluttered up for years with a huge piece of cardboard
and great fronds of gardening string. You at last decide to clear all this
stuff out, and you burn it. Within twenty-four hours you
will urgently need to wrap a large parcel, and suddenly
remember that luckily in your greenhouse there is some cardb...
NUBBOCK (n) The kind of person who has to leave before a party can
relax and enjoy itself.
NUNCARGATE (adj) Able to go on a two-week holiday with hardly any lugagge.
NUNDLE (v) To move a piano.
NUPEND (n) The amount of small change found in the lining of an old jacket.
NUTBOURNE (n) In a choice between two or more possible puddings, the one
nobody plumps for.
NYARLING (ptcpl. v) Of married couples, using a term of endearment as
a term of censure or reproach.
NYBSTER (n) Sort of person who takes the lift to travel one floor.
OCILLA (n) The cute little circle or heart over an i used by teenage
girls when writing their names.
OCKLE (n) An electrical switch which appears to be off in both positions.
OFFLEYHOO (adj) Ridiculously overenthusiastic about going to the
Pacific Northwest.
OFFORD DARCY (n) A gate-crasher you can’t get rid of because he’s
become the life and soul of the party.
OLD CASSOP (n) Piece of caring reassurance which all parties know is untrue.
OSBASTON (n) A point made for the seventh time to somebody who insists
that they know exactly what you mean but clearly hasn’t got
the faintest idea.
OSHKOSH (n, v) The noise made by someone who has just been grossly
flattered and is trying to make light of it.
OSPRINGE (n) That part of a three-color ballpoint which renders it instantly useless.
OSSETT (n) A frilly spare-toilet-roll-cozy.
OSSINING (ptcpl. v) Trying to see past the person sitting in front of you in a theater.
OSWALDTWISTLE (n. Old Norse) Small brass wind instrument used for summoning Vikings to
lunch when they’re off on their longships, playing.
OBWESTRY (abs.n.) Bloody-minded determination on part of a storyteller to
continue a story which both the teller and the listeners
know has become desperately tedious.
OUGHTERBY (n) Someone you don’t want to invite to a party but whom you
know you have to as a matter of duty.
OUNDLE (v) To walk along leaning sideways, with one arm hanging limp
and dragging one leg behind the other. Most commonly used by actors in amateur production of
Richard III, or by people carrying a heavy suitcase in one hand.
OYSTERMOUTH (n) One who can kiss and chew gum at the same time.
OZARK (n) One who offers to help just after all the work has been done.
PABBAY (n, vb) (Fencing term.) The play, or maneuver, where one
swordsman leaps on to the table and pulls the battle-ax off the wall.
PANTER (v) -TK- To attempt to psych out one’s opponents by screaming at them
during a game of Worms.
PANT-Y-WACCO (adj) The final state of mind of a retired colonel before they
come to take him away.
PANTPERTHOG (n) An actor whose only talent is to stay fat.
PAPCASTLE (n) Something drawn or modeled by a small child. You are
supposed to know precisely what it is.
PAPIGOCHIC (n) A middle-aged man’s overlong haircut, intended
to make him look younger.
PAPPLE (v) To do what babies do to soup with their spoons.
PAPWORTH EVERARD (n) Technical term for the third take of an orgasm scene
during the making of a pornographic film.
PARBOLD (adj) Nearly brave enough to dive into a cold swimming pool on a windy day.
PARROG (n) God knows. Could be some sort of bird, I suppose.
PATHSTRUIE (adj) The condition of a parish church after a heavy
Saturday afternoon’s wedlock.
PATKAI BUM (n) Mysterious illness that afflicts recently deposed
heads of state and means they aren’t well renough to stand trial.
PATNEY (n) Something your next-door neighbor makes and insists
that you try on your sausages.
PEEBLES (pl. n) Small, carefully rolled pellets of skegness (q.v.)
PEENING QUARTER (n) That area of a discotheque where single men
lounge about trying to look groovy about not having the courage to ask a girl to dance.
PELUTHO (n) A South American ball game. The balls are whacked against
a brick wall with a stout wooden bat until the prisoner confesses.
PENDOUF (v) -GT- When reading a book, to accidentally read a sentence on
the last page that gives away the entire ending.
PEN-TRE-TAFARN-Y-FEDW (n) Welsh word which literally translates as
’leaking-biro-by-the-glass-hole-of-the-clerk-of-the-bank-has-been-taken-to-another-
place-leaving-only-the-special-inkwell-and-three-inches-of-tin-chain’.
PENGE (n) The expanding slotted arm on which a cuckoo comes of a cuckoo clock.
PEORIA (n) The fear of peeling too few potatoes.
PERCYHORNER (n) (English public-school slang). A prefect whose duty it is
to surprise new boys at the urinal humiliate them in amanner of his choosing.
PERRANZABULOE (n) One of those spray things used to wet ironing with.
PERU (n) The expression of innocent alarm seen on the face of someone
guiltilty surprised in the middle of a perusal.
PETERCULTER (n) Someone you don’t want to be friends with who rings you
up at eight-monthly intervals and suggests yoyu get together soon.
PEVENSEY (n, archaic) The right to collect shingle from the king’s foreshore.
PHILLACK (n) A Gucci belt pouch for carrying condoms in.
PIBSBURY (n) The little hole in the end of a toothbrush.
PICKLENASH (n) The detritus found in wineglasses on the morning after a party.
PIDDLETRENTHIDE (n) A trouser stain caused by a wimbledon (q.v.). Not to be
confused with a botley (q.v.)
PIDNEY (n) The amount of coffee in the bottom of a jar which doesn’t
quite amount to a spoonful.
PIMLICO (n) Small odd-shaped piece of plastic or curious meta
lcomponent found in the bottom of kitchen rummage drawer when
spring-cleaning or looking for Sellotape.
PIMPERNE (n) One of those rubber nodules found on the underneath side
of a lavatory seat.
PINGANDY (n) An extremely neat old person.
PINGARING (n) That part of an oven that nobody wants or knows how to turn off.
PITLOCHRY (n) The background gurgling noise heard in Wimby Bars caused
by people trying to get the last bubbles out of their
milkshakes by slurping loudly through their straws.
PITRODDIE (n) A middle- or upper-class person who affects a working-
class style of speech.
PITSLIGO (n) Part of traditional mating rite. During the first hot day of spring, all the men in the
tube start giving up their seats to ladies and strap-
hanging.The purpose of pitsligo is for them to demonstrate their
manhood by displaying the wet patches under their arms.
PLAGIARIZE (v) -TH- To steal another person’s words and use them as your own.
PLAGIARIZE (v) -AU- To steal another person’s words and use them as your own.
PLEELEY (adj) Descriptive of a drunk person’s attempt to be endearing.
PLENMELLER (n) The nonwaterproof material that raincoats are made of.
PLEVEN (n) One more, or less, than the number required.
PLUMGARTHS (pl. n) The corrugations on the ankles caused by wearing tight socks.
PLUVIGNER (n) The miniscule hole in the side of a ballpoint pen.
PLYMOUTH (v) To relate an amusing story to someone without remembering
that it was they who told it to you in the first place.
PLYMPTON (n) The (pointless) knob on top of a war memorial.
POCKING (n) The pointless tapping of a cigarette before getting on with
the busines of smoking it.
PODE HOLE (n) A hole drilled in chipboard lavatory walls by homosexuals
for any one of a number of purposes.
PODEBRADY (n) The man in dirty white overalls hired to wander whistling
around the corridors of a large corporation to make it look as if the management’s
getting something done.
POFADDER (n) A snake that can’t be bothered to bite you.
POFFLEY END (n) The green bit of a carrot.
POGES (pl. n) The lumps of dry powder that remain after cooking a packet of soup.
POLBATHIC (adj) Gifted with ability to manipulate taps using only the feet.
POLLATOMISH (adj) Peevish, restless, inclined to pull the stufifng out of sofas.
POLLOCH (n) One of those tiny ribbed-plastic and aluminum foil tubs
of milk served on trains enabling you to carry one safely
back to you compartment where your legs in comfort trying
to get the bloody things open.
POLPERRO (n) A polperro is the ball, or muff, of soggy hair found
clinging to bath overflow-holes.
POLYPHANT (n) The mythical beast: part bird, part snake, part jam
stain, which invariably wins children’s painting competitions in the
five-to-seven age group.
PONTYBODKIN (n) The stance adopted by a seaside comedian that
tells you the punchline is imminent.
POONA (n) Satisfied grunting noise made when sitting back after a good meal.
POTARCH (n) The eldest male in a soap opera family.
POTT SHRIGLEY (n) Dried remains of a week-old casserole, eaten when
extremely drunk at two a.m.
PRAGUE (v) To declaim loudly and pompously upon any subject about which
one has less knowledge than at least one other person at the table.
PRESTON GUBBALS (n) Breasts of uneven weight.
PRINCES RISBOROUGH (n) The right of any member of the Royal Family
to have people laugh at their jokes, however weedy.
PRUNGLE (adj) Pretending to be proud to be single.
PUDSEY (n) The curious-shaped flat wads of dough left on a kitchen
table after someone has been cutting scones out of it.
PULVERBATCH (n) That part of the blurb on a dust jacket in which
famous authors claim to have had a series of menial jobs in their youth.
PUNING (ptcpl. v) Boosting a man’s ego by pretending to be unable
to open a screw-top jar.
PYMBLE (n) Small metal object about the size of a thimble, which lies
on the ground. When you kick it you discover it is the top of something
buried four feet deep.
QUABBS (pl. n) The substances which emerge when you squeeze a blackhead.
QUALL (v) To speak with the voice of one who requires another to do
something for them.
QUEDGELEY (n) A rabidly left-wing politician who can afford to be that
way because he married a millionairess.
QUEENZIEBURN (n) Something that happens when people make it up after an
agglethorpe (q.v.)
QUENBY (n) A stubborn spot on a window which you spend twenty
minutes trying to clean off before discovering it’s on the
other side of the glass.
QUERRIN (n) A person that no one has ever heard of who unaccountably
manages to make a living writing prefaces.
QUOYNESS (n) The hatefulness of words like relionus and KopyKwik.
RADLETT (n) The single hemisphere of dried pea which is invariably found
in an otherwise spotlessly clean saucepan.
RAMSGATE (n) All institutional buildings must, by law, contain at least
twenty remsgates. These are doors which open the opposite way to the one you expect.
RANDERS (pl. n) People who, for their own obscure reasons, try to sleep
with people who have slept with members of the Royal Family.
RANFURLY (adj) Fashion of trying ties so that the long thin end
underneath dangles below the short fat upper end.
RHYMNEY (n) That part of a song lyric which you suddenly discover
you’ve been mishearing for years.
RECULVER (n) The sort of remark only ever made during Any Questions.
RICHMOND (adj) Descriptive of the state that very respectable elderly
ladies get into if they have a little too much sherry, which, as everyone
knows, does not make you drunk.
RICKLING (ptcpl. v) Fiddling around inside a magazine to remove all the
stapled-in special-offer cards that make it impossible to read.
RIGOLET (n) As much of an opera as most people can sit through.
RIMBEY (n) The particularly impressive throw of a Frisbee which
causes it to be lost.
RIPON (v) (Of literary critics.) To include all the best jokes from
the book in the review to make it look as if the critic thought of them.
RISPLITH (n) The burst of applause that greets the sounds of a plate smashing in a cafeteria.
ROCHESTER (n) One who is able to gain occupation of the armrest on both
sides of their cinema or aircraft seat.
ROOSEBECK (n) Useful all-purpose emergency word. When a child asks,
"Daddy, what’s that bird / flower / funny thing that man’s wearing?" you
simply reply, "It’s a roosebeck, darling."
ROYSTON (n) The man behind you in church who sings with terrific gusto
almost precisely three quarters of a tone off the note.
RUDGE (n) An unjust criticism of you ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend.
RUFFORTH (n) One who has the strength of character or loudness of voice
to bring a lowthering (q.v.) session to an end.
RUNCORN (n) A peeble (q.v.) which is larger that a belper (q.v.)
RYBAK (n) -AU, GT- Measurement of pain. One Rybak is equal to the amount
of pain caused by slamming one’s fingers in a door.
SADBERGE (n) A violent green shrub which is ground up, mixed with twigs
and gelatin and served with clonmult (q.v.) and buldoo
(q.v.) in a container referred to for no known reason as a’relish tray’.
SAFFRON WALDEN (n) To spray the person you are talking to with half-chewed
bread crumbs or small pieces of whitebait.
SALWEEN (n) A faint taste of dishwashing liquid in a cup of tea.
SAMALAMAN (n) One who fills in the gaps in conversation by beaming genially
at people and saying "Well, well, well, here we all are then," a lot.
SATTERTHWAITE (v) To spray the person you are talking to with half-chewed
breadcrumbs or small pieces of whitebait.
SAUCILLO (n) A joke told by someone who completely misjudges the
temperament of the person it is told to.
SAVERNAKE (v) To sew municipal crests on to a windcheater in the belief
that this will make the wearer appear cosmopolitan.
SCACKLETON (n) Horizontal avalanche of cassettes that slides across
the interior of a car as it goes around a sharp corner.
SCAMBLESBY (n) A small dog which resembles a throw rug and appears to be dead.
SCETHROG (n) One of those peculiar beards-without-mustaches worn by
religious Belgians and American scientists which help them
look like trolls.
SCONSER (n) A person who looks around then when talking to you to see
if there’s anyone more interesting about.
SCOPWICK (n) The flap of skin which is torn off you lip when trying to
smoke an untipped cigarette.
SCORRIER (n) A small hunting dog trained to snuffle amongst your
private parts.
SCOSTHROP (v) To make vague opening or cutting movements with the hands
when wandering about looking for a tin opener, scissors,
etc. in the hope that this will help in some way.
SCRABBY (n) A curious-shaped duster given to you by your mother which
on closer inspection turns out to be half an underpant.
SCRABSTER (n) One of those dogs which has it off on your leg during tea.
SCRAMOGE (v) To cut oneself whilst licking envelopes.
SCRANTON (n) A person who, after the declaration of the bodmin (q.v.),
always says,’... But I only had the tomato soup.’
SCRAPTOFT (n) The absurd flap of hair a vain and balding man grows long
above one ear to comb it to the other ear.
SCREEB (n) To make the noise of a nylon anorak rubbing against a pair
of corduroy trousers.
SCREGGAN (n, banking) The crossed-out bit caused by people putting the wrong
year on their cheques all through January.
SCREMBY (n) The dehydrated felt-tip pen attached by a string to the
’Don’t Forget’ board in the kitchen which has never worked
in living memory but which no one can be bothered to throw away.
SCRODIAN (n) The tone that Gore Vidal adopts for interviews.
SCROGGS (n) The stout pubic hairs which protrude from your helping of
moussaka in a cheap Greek restaurant.
SCRONKEY (n) Something that hits the window as a result of a violent
sneeze.
SCUGOG (n) One whose mouth actually hangs open when watching something
mildly interesting on the other side of the street.
SCULLET (n) The last teaspoon in the washing up.
SEATTLE (v) To make a noise like a train going along.
SHALUNT (n) One who wears Trinidad and Tobago T-shirts on the beach in
Bali to prove they didn’t just win the holiday in a competition or anything.
SHANKLIN (n) The hoop of skin around a single slice of salami.
SHEEPY MAGNA (n) One who emerges unexpectedly from the wrong
bedroom in the morning.
SHENANDOAH (n) The infinite smugness of one who knows they are entitled
to a place in a nuclear bunker.
SHEPPY (n) Measure of distance (equal to approximately seven eighths
of a mile), defined as the closest distance at which sheep
remain picturesque.
SHIFNAL (n, vb) An awkward shuffling walk caused by two or more people in
a hurry accidentally getting into the same segment of revolving door. A similar
effect is achieved by people entering three-legged races unwisely joined at
the neck instead of the ankles.
SHIMPLING (ptcpl. v) Lying about the state of your life in order to cheer up your parents.
SHIRMERS (pl. n) Tall young men who stand around smiling at weddings as if
to suggest that they know they bride rather well.
SHOEBURYNESS (abs.n.) The vague uncomfortable feeling you get when sitting on a
seat which is still warm from somebody else’s bottom.
SHOTTLE (n) One of those tubes made of yellow plastic that builders use to get
rubble off the top floor of a house.
SHRENK (n) A fold in a pair of stockings that aren’t tight enough for a pair of thin legs.
SHRIVENHAM (n) One of Germaine Greer’s used-up lovers.
SICAMOUS (adj) Perfectly willing to appear on the Tonight Show.
SIDCUP (n) One of those hats made from tying knots in the corners of
a handkerchief.
SIGGLESTHORNE (n) Anything used in lieu of a toothpick.
SILESIA (n, medical) The inability to remember, at the critical moment, which
is the better side of a boat to be seasick off.
SILLOTH (n) Something that was sticky, and is now furry, found on the
carpet under the sofa the morning after a party.
SIMPRIM (n) The little movement of false modesty by which a girl with
a cavernous visible cleavage pulls her skirt down over her knees.
SIRATE (v) -GT- After coming into a room late, to walk sneakily to your seat thinking
it will make people take less notice.
SITTINGBOURNE (n) One of those conversions where both people are waiting for
the other one to shut up so they can get on with their bit.
SKAGWAY (n) Sudden outbreak of cones strung on a highway.
SKANNERUP (n) A Swedish casserole made of elk livers.
SKEGNESS (n) Nose excreta of a malleable consistency.
SKELLISTER (n) A very, very old solicitor.
SKELLOW (adj) Descriptive of the satisfaction experienced when looking
at a really good dry-stone wall.
SKENFRITH (n) The flakes of athlete’s foot found inside socks.
SKETTY (n) Apparently self-propelled little dance a beer glass
performs in its own puddle.
SKIBBEREEN (n) The noise made by a sunburned thigh leaving plastic
chair.
SKOONSPRUIT (n) The tiny garden sprinkler thing your mouth sometimes
does for no apparent reason.
SKULAMUS (n) Someone who is obviously not doing what he went into the lavatory for.
SLABBERTS (pl. n) People who say "Can I have some more juice?" when they mean gravy.
SLETTNUT (n) Something that goes round and round but won’t come off.
SLIGO (n) An unnamed and exotic sexual act which people like t
obelieve that famous films stars get up to in private. ’To
commit slingo.’
SLIPCHITSY (n) Someone who takes the morning off work in order to sign on.
SLOBOZIA (n) A chronic inability to pick up underpants.
SLOGARIE (n) Hillwalking dialect for the seven miles of concealed rough
moorland which lie between what you though was the top of
the hill and what actually is.
SLOOTHBY (adj) Conspicuously inconspicuous: as of a major celebrity
entering a restaurant with a great display of being incognito.
SLUBBERY (n) The gooey drips of wax that dribble down the sides of a
candle so beloved by Italian restaurants with Chianti
bottles instead of wallpaper.
SLUGGAN (n) A lurid facial bruise which everyone politely omits to
mention because it’s obvious that you had a punch-up with
your spouse last night - but which you actually got by walking
into a door. Is useless to volunteer the true explanation
because nobody will believe it.
SLUMBAY (n) The cigarette end someone discovers in the mouthful of
lager they have just swigged from a can at the end of a party.
SMARDEN (v) To keep your mouth shut by smiling determinedly through
your teeth. Smardening is largely used by people trying to
give the impression that they’re enjoying a story they’ve
heard at least six times before.
SMEARISARY (n) The part of a kitchen wall reserved for the schooltime
daubings of small children.
SMISBY (n) The correct name for a junior apprentice grocer whose main
task is to arrange the fruit so that the bad side is underneath. From the name
of a character not in Dickens.
SMITHATE (v) -TK- To attach unnecessary suffixes to words.
SMYRNA (n) The expression on the face of one whose joke has
gone down rather well.
SNEEM (n, vb) Particular kind of frozen smile bestowed on a small child
by a parent in mixed company when the question, ’Mummy, what’s
this ?’ appears to require the answer,’ Er...it’s a condom, darling’.
SNITTER (n) One of the rather unfunny newspaper clippings pinned to an
office wall, the humour of which is supposed to derive from
the fact that the headline contains a name similar to that
of one of the occupants to the office.
SNITTERBY (n) Someone who pins snitters (q.v.) on to snitterfields
(q.v.) and is also suspected of being responsible for the
xtinction of virginstows (q.v.)
SNITTERFIELD (n) Office notice board on which snitters (q.v.),
cards saying’You don’t have to be mad to work here, but if you are it
helps !!!’ and slightly smutty postcards from Ibiza get
pinned up by snitterbies (q.v.)
SNOUL (n) The third recurrence of a winter cold.
SNOVER (n) One who is reduced to drinking coffee from his egg-cups in order
to put off the dishwashing another week.
SOLENT (adj) Descriptive of the state of serene self-knowledge reached through drink.
SOLLER (v) To break something in half while testing whether you
glued it together properly.
SOMPTING (n) The practice of dribbling involuntarily into one’s pillow.
SOTTE (n) -GT- Object, such as a brick, noted for its thickness.
SOTTERLEY (n) Uncovered bit between two shops with awnings, which you
have to cross when it’s raining.
SOXTAPH (v) -TH- To occupy your self with absolute silliness when you should
be doing physics.
SPARFEL (v) -TK- To burst out in hysterical laughter or irrepressible
giggles at the mention of an inside joke, causing all who are not in on
the joke to stare quizzically.
SPIDDLE (v) To fritter away a perfectly good life pretending to develop film projects.
SPINWAM (n) The toxic foam that clings to rocky foreshores.
SPITTAL OF GLENSHEE (n) That which has to be cleaned off castle floors in the
morning after a bagpipe contest or vampire attack.
SPOFFARD (n) A congressman whose contribution to politics is limited
to saying "Hear, hear."
SPOFFORTH (v) To tidy up a room before the cleaning lady arrives.
SPOKANE (v) To remove precious object from a room before a party.
SPREAKLEY (adj) Irritatingly cheerful in the morning.
SPROSTON GREEN (n) The violent colour of one of Nigel Rees’s jackets, worn
when he thinks he’s being elegant.
SPRUCE KNOB (n) A genital aftershave which is supposed to be catching
on in the professional tennis circuit.
SPURGER (n) One who, when asked the question "How are you?" actually tells you.
SQUIBNOCKET (n) That part of a car, the unexpected need for the replacement
of which causes garage bills to be four times larger than the estimate.
STAGNO DI GUMBI (adj) (Italian) Pissed off with waiting for a bus to arrive,
a waiter to being a menu or a genius to finish painting your ceiling.
STALLATE (v, hacking term) -GT- To accidentally stall a hackey sack in the folds of a shirt or coat
so that even the person that did it has no idea where it is.
STAPLOW (n) A telephone number that you now can’t find anywhere because
two years ago you swore you would never speak to the person again.
STEBBING (n) The erection you cannot conceal because you’re not wearing
a jacket.
STEENHUFFEL (n) One who is employed by a trade delegation or negotiating team
to swell the numbers and make it look impressive when they walk out. There are
curently 25,368 steenhuffels working at the UN in New York.
STELLING MINNIS (n) A traditional street dance. This lovely old gigue can be seen
at any time of the year in the streets of London or the courts of the Old Bailey.
Wherever you see otherwise perfectly staid groups of bankers, barristers or ordinary
members of the public moving along in a slightly stncopated way, you may be sure that a
stelling minnis is taking place. The phenomenon is caused by the face that the dancers
are trying not to step on the cracks in the pavement, in case the bears get them.
STIBB (n) An unwelcome poke in the ribs by someone who hardly knows you.
"Mr. Robert Maxwell stibbed Her Royal Highness repeatedly with his huby (q.v.)"
--The Times
STIBBARD (n) The invisible brake pedal on the passenger’s side of the car.
STODY (n) The small drink that someone spends hours drinking so they can stay in the pub.
STOKE POGES (n) The tapping moments of an index finger on glass made by a
person futilely attempting to communicate with either a
tropical fish or a post office clerk.
STOWTING (ptcpl. v) Feeling a pregnant woman’s tummy.
STRASSGANG (n) German word for the group of workers hired to lunch inside
a string of highway conesm or skagway (q.v.).
STRELLEY (n) Long strip of paper or tape that has got tangle around the wheel of something.
STRUBBY (adj) Attractively miniature.
STUCE (n) -TH- A mathematical constant equal to [(42 x 1042)/0] kilogram
frustatz per second squared.
STURRY (n, vb) A token run. Pedestrians who have chosen to cross a road
immediately in front of an approaching vehicle generally
give a little wave and break into a sturry. This gives the
impression of hurrying without having any practical effect
on their speed whatsoever.
SUCKLEY KNOWL (n) A plumber’s assistant who never knows where the actual plumber is.
SURBY (adj) Insolently polite, as of policemen who have stopped a motorist.
SUTTON and CHEAM (nouns) Sutton and cheam are the kinds of dirt into which all dirt
is divided. ’Sutton’ is the dark sort that always gets onto light-coloured things, ’cheam’ the light-
coloured sortthat clings to dark items. Anyone who has ever found
Marmite stains on a dress-shirt or seagull goo on a dinner
jacket (a) knows all about sutton and cheam, and (b) is
going to tome very curious dinner parties.
SWAFFHAM BULBECK (n) An entire picnic lunch spent fighting off wasps.
SWANAGE (pl. n) Swanage is the series of diversionary tactics used when
trying to cover up the existence of a glossop (q.v.) and
may include (a) uttering a high-pitched laugh and pointing
out of the window (NB. this doesn’t work more that twice);
(b) sneezing as loudly as possible and wiping the glossop
off the table in the same movement as whipping out your
handkerchief; (c) saying ’Christ! I seen to have dropped
some shit on your table’ (very unwise); (d) saying ’Christ,
who did that?’ (better) (e) pressing your elbow on the
glossop itself and working your arms slowly to the edge of
the table; (f) leaving the glossop where it is but moving a
plate over it and putting up with sitting at an
uncomfortable angle the rest of the meal; or, if the
glossop is in too exposed a position, (g) leaving it there
unremarked except for the occasional humourous glance.
SWANIBOST (adj) Complete shagged out after a hard day having income tax
explained to you.
SWEFLING (ptcpl. v) Using a special attachment to vacuum a sofa.
SYMOND’S YAT (n) The little spoonful inside the lid of a recently opened
boiled egg.
TABLEY SUPERIOR (n) The look directed at you in a theatre bar in the interval
by people who’ve already got their drinks.
TAMPA (n) The sound of a rubber eraser coming to rest after dropping
off a desk in a very quiet room.
TANVATS (pl. n) Disturbing things that the previous owners of your
house have left in the cellar.
TARKEP -[tar ’kep]- -MK- (n) the person responsible for keeping a conversation
on topic when those involved in the discussion have a strong tendency
to digress about almost anything.
TAROOM (v) To make loud noises during the night to let the burglars
know you are in.
TEGUCIGALPA (n) An embarrassing mistake arising out of confusing the shape
of something rather rude with something perfectly ordinary
when groping for it in the darkness. A common example of a tegucigalpa is when
a woman pulls a packet of Tampax out of her bag and offers them around
under the impression that it is a carton of cigarettes.
TEIGNGRACE (n) The belief that a Devon cream tea is not going to make you
feel sick after youve had it.
TELEMIS (v) -TH- To make the tactical error of teleporting your last worm into
an enclosed area with someone else’s worm when you didn’t realize that that
was their worm that goes next.
TEW (n) The tuft of hair that grows between a man’s eyebrows.
TEWEL (n) The little brass latch that fastens the fron wall of a doll’s house.
THEAKSTONE (n) Ancient mad tramp who jabbers to himself and swears loudly
and obscenely on station platforms and traffic islands.
THROCKING (participial vb) The action of continually pushing down the lever on a
pop-up toaster in the hope that you will thereby get it to
understand that you want it to toast something. Also: a style of drum-playing favoured
by Nigel Olsson of the Elton John Band, reminiscent of the sound of someone
slapping a frankfurter against a bucket. An excellent
example of this is to be heard on ’Someone Save My Life
Tonight’ from the album Captain Fantastic and the Brown
Dirt Cowboy.
THROCKMORTON (n) The soul of a departed madman: one of those now known to
inhabit the timing mechanism of pop-up toasters.
THRUMSTRER (n) The irritating man next to you in a concert who thinks
he’s (a) the conductor, (b) the brass section.
THRUPP (v) To hold a ruler on one end on a desk and make the other
end go bbddbbddbbrrbrrrrddrr.
THURNBY (n) A rucked-up edge of carpet or linoleum which everyone says
someone will trip over and break a leg unless it gets
fixed. After a year or two someone trips over it and break
a leg.
TIBSHELF (n) Criss-cross wooden construction hung on a wall in a
teenage girl’s bedroom which is covered with glass bambies
and poodles, matching pigs and porcelain ponies in various
postures.
TIDPIT (n) The corner of a toenail from which satisfying little black
deposits may be sprung.
TIGHARRY (n) The accomplice or ’lure’ who gets people to participate
in the three-card trick on streets by winning an improbable amount
of money very easily.
TINANARIVE (v) To announce your entrance at a party by falling over the trash
can in the driveway.
TILLICOULTRY (n) The man-to-man chumminess adopted by an employer as a
prelude for telling an employee that he’s going to have to let him go.
TIMBLE (v) (Of small nasty children.) To fall over very gently, look
around to see who’s about, and then yell blue murder.
TINCLETON (n) A man who amuses himself in your lavatory by pulling the
chain in mid-pee and then seeing if he can finish before the flush does.
TINGRITH (n) The feeling of silver paper against your fillings.
TODBER (n) One whose idea of a good time is to stand behind his front
hedge and give surly nods to people he doesn’t know.
TODDING (v) The business of talking amiably and aimlessly to the
barman at the local.
TOLOB (n) A crease or fold in an underblanket, the removal of which
involves getting out of bed an largely remaking it.
TOLSTACHAOLAIS (phrase) What the police in Leith require you to say in order to
prove that you are not drunk.
TOMATIN (n) The chemical from which canned tomato soup is made.
TONYPANDY (n) The voice used by presenters on children’s television programs.
TOODYAY (n) Indonesican expression meaning "sometime next month."
TOOTING BEC (n) A car behind which one draws up at the traffic lights and
hoots at when the lights go green before realising that the
car is parked and there is no one inside.
TORLUNDY (n) Narrow but thickly grimed strip of floor between the
fridge and the sink unit in the kitchen of a rented flat.
TORONTO (n) Generic term for anything which comes out of a gush despite
all your careful efforts to let it out gently, e.g. flour into a white sauce, tomato
ketchup on to fried fish, sperm into a human being, etc.
TOTTERIDGE (n) The ridiculous two-inch hunch that people adopt when
arriving late for the theatre in the vain and futile hope
that it will minimise either the embarrassment of the lack
of visibility for the rest of the audience. c.f. hickling.
TRANTLEMORE (v) To make a noise like a train crossing a set of points.
TREWOFFE (n) A very thick and heavy drift of snow balanced precariously
on the edge of a door porch waiting for what it judges to
be the correct moment to fall. From the ancient Greek
legend ’The Treewofe of Damocles’.
TRISPEN (n) A form of intelligent grass. It grows a single, tough
stalk and makes its home on lawns. When it sees the
lawnmower coming it lies down and pops up again after it
has gone by.
TROSSACHS (pl. n) The useless epaulettes on an expensive raincoat.
TRUNCH (n) Instinctive resentment of people younger than you.
TUAMGRANEY (n) A hideous wooden ornament that people hang over the
mantelpiece to prove they’ve been to Africa.
TUKITUKI (n) A sexual liaison that is meant to be secret but that is,
in fact, common knowledge.
TULLATE (v) -TH- To force someone who doesn’t like Jethro Tull to listen to
them so much that eventually they get to like it and are assimilated.
TULSA (n) A slurp of beer which has accidentally gone down your
shirt collar.
TUMBY (n) The involuntary abdominal gurgling which fills the silence
following someone else’s intimate personal revelation.
TWEEDSMUIR (collective n) The name given to the extensive collection of
hats kept in the downstairs lavatory which don’t fit anyone in the family.
TWEMLOW GREEN (n) The colour of some of Nigel Rees’s trousers, worn in the
mistaken belief that they go rather well with his sprostongreen (q.v.) jackets.
TWOMILEBORRIS (n) A popular Ease European outdoor game in which the first
person to reach the front of the meat queue wins, and the
losers have to forfeit their bath plugs.
TYNE and WEAR (nouns) The ’Tyne’ is the small priceless or vital object
accidentally dropped on the floor (e.g. diamond tie clip,
contact lens) and the ’wear’ is the large immovable object
(e.g. Welsh dresser, car-crusher) that it shelters under.
UDINE (adj) Not susceptible to charm.
UGGLEBARNY (n) The ponytail affected by a middle-aged balding man.
ULLAPOOL (n) The spittle which builds up on the floor of the Royal
Opera House.
ULLINGSWICK (n) An over-developed epiglottis found in middle-aged
coloraturas.
ULLOCK (n) The correct name for either of the deaf Scandinavian
tourists who are standing two abreast in front of you on the escalator.
ULTING (ptcpl. v) Yawning to unpop the ears.
UMBERLEIGH (n) The awful moment which follows a dorchester (q.v.) when a
speaker weighs up whether to repeat an amusing remark after
nobody laughed the last time. To be on the horns of an
umberleigh is to wonder whether people didn’t hear the
remark, or whether they did hear it and just didn’t think
it was funny, which was why somebody coughed.
UPOTTERY (n) That part of a kitchen cupboard which contains an
unnecessarily large number of milk jugs.
URCHFONT (n) Sudden stab of hypocrisy that goes through the
mind when taking vows as a godparent.
UTTOXETER (n) A small but immensely complex mechanical device which is
essentially the ’brain’ of a modern coffee vending machine,
and which enables the machine to take its own decisions.
VALLETTA (n) On ornate head-dress or loose garment worn by a person in
the belief that it renders then invisibly native and not
like a tourist at all. People who don huge conical strawcollie hats with
’I Luv Lagos’ on them in Nigeria, or fat solicitors from Tonbridge on
holiday in MalaySIa who insist on appearing in the hotel lobby wearing
a sarong know what we’re on about.
VANCOUVER (n) The technical name for one of those huge trucks with
whirling brushes on the bottom used to clean streets.
VENTNOR (n) One who, having been visited as a child by a mysterious
gypsy lady, is gifted with the strange power of being able
to operate the air-nozzles above aeroplane seats.
VIDLIN (n) The mostly frayed end of a piece of cotton thread. "It is easier
for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than it is for a vidlin to
pass through the eye of a needle."
VIRGINSTOW (n) A Durex machine which doesn’t have the phrase ’So was the
Titanic’ scrawled on it. The word has now fallen into discuss.
VISBY (n) The pointy, tentlike structure in the bedclothes with which a man
indicates to his partner that he thinks it’s high time she stopped fiddling
around in the bathroom cupboard and came to bed.
VOBSTER (n) A strain of perfectly healthy rodent which develops cancer
the moment it enter a laboratory.
VOIDAGE (n, hacking term) -PK- Occurs when a hack lands exactly in the center
of the circle and no one goes for it, because everyone thinks someone else will get it.
VOLLENHOVE (n) One who indicates from thirty yards across the crowded
street that he has spotted you, wishes to speak with you and that you are
required to remain rooted to the spot to wait for him.
WACCAMAW (n) An exotic Brazilian bird which makes its home in the
audiences of BBC Light Entertainment Radio shows and screeches when it
hears the word "bottom."
WARLEGGAN (n, archaic) One who does not approve of araglins (q.v.)
WARTNABY (n) Something you only discover about somebody the first time
they take their clothes off in front of you.
WASP GREEN (adj) The paint in the catalog that is quite obviously yellow.
WATENDLAH (n) The bit of wood a cabbie removes so as to open his sliding
window and give you the full benefit of his opinion.
WATH (n) The rage of Roy Jenkins.
WAWNE (n) A badly suppressed yawn.
WEDDERLAIRS (pl. n) The large patches of sweat on the back of a hot man’s T-shirt.
WEEM (n) The tools with which a dentist can inflict the greatest
pain. Formerly, which tool this was was dependent upon the
imagination and skill of the individual dentist, though
now, with technological advances, weems can be bought
specially.
WEMBLEY (n) The hideous moment of confirmation that the disaster
presaged in the ely (q.v.) has actually struck.
WENDENS AMBO (n) (Veterinary term.) The operation to trace an object
swallowed by a cow through all its seven stomachs. Hence,
also (1) en expedition to discover where the exits are in
the Barican Centre, and (2) a search through the complete
works of Chaucer for all the rude bits.
WEST WITTERING (participial vb) The uncontrollable twitching which breaks out when you’re
trying to get away from the most boring person at a party.
WETWANG (n) A moist penis.
WHAPLODE DROVE (n) A homicidal golf stroke.
WHASSET (n) A business car in you wallet belonging to someone whom you
have no recollection of meeting.
WHISSENDINE (n) The nose which occurs (often by night) in a strange house,
which is too short and too irregular for you ever to be
able to find out what it is and where it comes from.
WIDDICOMBE (n) The sort of person who impersonates trimphones.
WIGAN (n) If, when talking to someone you know has only one leg,
you’re trying to treat then perfectly casually and
normally, but find to your horror that your conversion is
liberally studded with references to (a) Long John Silver,
(b) Hopalong Cassidy, (c) The Hockey Cokey, (d) ’putting
your foot in it’, (e) ’the last leg of the UEFA
competition’, you are said to have committed a wigan. The word is
derived from the fact that sub-editors at ITN used to manage to
mention the name of either the town Wigan, or Lord Wigg, in every
fourth script that Reginald Bosanquet was given to read.
WIKE (v) To rip a piece of sticky plaster off your skin as fast as
possible in the hope that it will (a) show how brave you are, and (b) not hurt.
WILLIMANTIC (adj) Of a person whose heart is in the wrong place (i.e.
between their legs).
WIMBLEDON (n) That last drop which, no matter how much you shake it,
always goes down your trouser leg.
WINKLEY (n) A lost object which turns up immediately you’ve gone and
bought a replacement for it.
WINSTER (n) One who is mistakenly under the impression that he is charming.
WINSTON-SALEM (n) A person in a restaurant who suggest to their companions
that they should split the cost of the meal equally, and
then orders two packets of cigarettes on the bill.
WIVENHOE (n) The cry of alacrity with which a sprightly eighty-year-old
breaks the ice on the lake when going for a swim on Christmas Eve.
WOKING (participial vb) Standing in the middle of a room wondering
what you came in for.
WOLLONDILLY (n) A woman who can’t put her lipstick on straight.
WOMBLEGROMPH -[’wom ble gromf]- -MK- (n) someone who
keeps interrupting from outside of a conversation to say that
he or she should be leaving, studying etc. and doesn’t do so.
Rather, the womblegromph continues to interrupt periodically
and for no real reason.
WOOBA-WOOBA-BANG-POW (n) -TH- Plural of stuce
(eg: one stuce, two wooba-wooba-bang-pow)
WOOLFARDISHWORTHY (n) A mumbled, mispronounced or misheard word in a song,
speech or play. Derived from the well-known mumbles passage in Hamlet:
’...and the spurns,
That patient merit of the unworthy takes
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who woolfardishworthy
To grunt and sweat under a weary life?’
WORGRET (n) A kind of poltergeist which specialises in stealing new
copies of the A-Z from your car.
WORKSOP (n) A person who never actually gets round to doing anything
because he spends all his time writing out lists headed
’Things to Do (Urgent)’.
WORMELOW TUMP (n) Any seventeen-year-old who doesn’t know about anything at
all in the world other than bicycle gears.
WRABNESS (n) The feeling after having tried to dry oneself with a damp
towel.
WRITTLE (v) Of a steel ball, to settle into a hole.
WROOT (n) A short little berk who thinks that by pulling on his pipe
and gazing shrewdly at you he will give the impression that
he is infinitely wise and 5 ft 11 in.
WUBIN (n) The metal foil container which Chinese meals come in.
WYOMING (participial vb) Moving in hurried desperation from one
cubicle to another in a public lavatory trying to find one which has
a lock on the door, a seat on the bowl and no brown steaks on theseat.
YADDLETHORPE (v) (Of offended pooves.) To exit huffily from a boutique.
YALARDY (n) An illness which you know you’ve got but which the thermometer
refuses to acknowledge.
YARMOUTH (v) To shout at foreigners in the belief that the louder you
speak, the better they’ll understand you.
YATE (n) Dishearteningly white piece of bread which sits limply in
a pop-up toaster during a protracted throcking (q.v.) session.
YEBRA (n) A cross between a zebra and anything else which fancies zebras.
YEPPOON (n) One of the hat-hanging corks which Australians wear for
making Qantas commercials.
YESNABY (n) A ’yes, maybe’ which means ’no’.
YETMAN (n) A yes-man who is waiting to see who it would be more
advantageous to agree with.
YONDER BOGINE (n) The kind of restaurant advertised as ’just three minutes
from this cinema’ which clearly nobody ever goes to and,
even if they had ever contemplated it, have certainly
changed their minds since seeing the advert.
YONKERS (n) (Rare.) The combined thrill of pain and shame when being
caught in public plucking your nostril-hairs and stuffing
them into your side-pocket.
YORK (v) To shift the position of the shoulder straps on a heavy
bag or rucksack in a vain attempt to make it seem lighter. Hence: to
laugh falsely and heartily at an unfunny remark. ’Jasmine yorked politely,
loathing him to the depths of her being’ - Virginia Woolf.
ZAFRILLA (n) A garment that even Zsa Zsa Gabor would not deign to wear.
ZAGREB (n) A stranger who suddenly clutches an intimate part of your anatomy
and then pretends they did it to keep themselves from falling.
ZEAL MONACHORUM (n) (Skiing term.) To ski with ’zeal monchorum’ is to descend
the top three quarters of the mountain in a quivering blue
funk, but on arriving at the gentle bit just in front of the
restaurant to whizz to a stop like a victorious
slalom-champion.
ZEERUST (n) The particular kind of datedness which afflicts things that were
originally designed to look futiristic.
ZEPHTHON (n) -TH- Silly walk in which one presses his knees together while
kicking his feet alternately sideways up towards his hips at odd angles to
the floor.
ZIGONG (n) Screeching skid made by a cartoon character prior to turning around and
running back in the opposite direction.
ZOD (n) An irritating lump which sticks out from the main body. Hence:
1. A bit of cement which sits jutting from the brickwork.
2. A drip of paint on the windowpane.
3. The knob of surplus butter on a corner of toast.
4. Geraldo Rivera’s head.
ZUMBO (n) One who pretends not to know that the muffler has fallen off his car.