One who changes his name to be nearer the front.

A liqueur made only for drinking at the end of a revoltingly long bottle party when all the drinkable drink has been drunk.

The agonizing situation in which there is only one possible decision but you still can't make it.

Of amateur actors, to adopt a Mexican accent when called upon to play any variety of foreigner (except Pakistanis—for whom a Welsh accent is considered sufficient).

To desire strongly to swing from the pole on the footplate of a San Francisco cable car.

To change a baby's name at the last possible moment.

A nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant than the thing being yearned for.

Descriptive of the pleasing coolness on the reverse side of the pillow.

One who washes everything except the frying pan, the cheese grater and the saucepan in which the chocolate sauce has been made.

One who prides himself on not even knowing what day of the week it is.

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.

The worn patch of ground under a swing.

An annual conference held at the Dragonara Hotel, Leeds, for people who haven't got any other conferences to go to.

To bounce cheerfully on a bed.

The old twinges you get in parts of your body when you scratch other parts.

The rogue pin which shirtmakers conceal in a hidden fold of a new shirt. Its function is to stab you when you don the garment.

The torrent of incomprehensible gibberish which emanates from the loudspeakers on top of cars covered in stickers.

The part of a suitcase which is designed to get snarled up on 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.

The centerpiece of a merry-go-round on which the man with the tickets stands unnervingly still.

The sort of fart you hope people will talk after.

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.

The way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves.

Any piece of readily identifiable anatomy found among cooked meat.

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 anymore.

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.

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.

(Archaic) Ancient Scottish curse placed from afar on the stretch of land now occupied by Heathrow Airport.

The single bristle that sticks out sideways on a cheap paintbrush.

A single surprisingly long hair growing in the middle of nowhere.

The 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.

Wanting to be bullied into having another drink.

One who collects ten-year-old telephone directories.

The ancient art of being able to balance the hot and cold shower taps.

The bizarre assortment of objects collected by a sleepwalker.

The talk given about the Facts of Life by a father to his son while walking in the garden on a Sunday afternoon.

The sneeze which tickles but never comes. (Thought to derive from London's Metropolitan Line tube station of the same name where rails always rattle but the train never arrives.)

A British Rail sandwich which has been kept soft by being regularly washed and resealed in plastic wrap.

A lurid bruise which you can't remember getting.

(Eskimo term) To bang your thumbs between the oars when rowing.

A loose, colored garment someone brings you back from their travels which they honestly expect you to wear.

(Archaic) The 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 suddenly attempt to raise the drawbridge as the knight and his charger step on it.

A remote acquaintance passed off as "a very good friend of mine" by someone trying to impress people.

To make a big display of searching all your pockets when approached by a charity collector.

One who rubs his hands eagerly together when he sits down in a restaurant.

Descriptive of the behavior of Scotch tape when you are tired.

A clever construction designed to give the illusion from the top of a double-decker bus that it is far too big for the road.

Any object against which a smoker habitually knocks out his pipe.

The hairstyle a girl adopts for a special occasion which suddenly gives you a sense of what she will look like in twenty years' time.

Of waiters, never to have a pen.

Something that justifies having a really good cry.

An on-off relationship which never gets resolved.

The splotch on a child's face where the ice cream cone has missed.

The sharp prong on top of a tree stump where the tree has snapped off before being completely sawed through.

The look which says, "Stop talking to that woman at once."

One of the six half-read books lying somewhere in your bed.

The noise of a trash can lid coming off in the middle of the night.

Pertaining to, or descriptive of, that kind of facial expression which is impossible to achieve except when having a passport photograph taken, which results in happas.

(Archaic) A lusty and raucous old ballad sung after a particularly spectacular araglin has been pulled off.

A humorous device such as a china horse or small naked porcelain infant which jocular hosts use to piss water into your scotch with.

To pretend to have read the book under discussion when in fact you've only seen the TV series.

That kind of large, fierce, ugly woman who owns a small, fierce, ugly dog.

A fitted elasticized bottom sheet which makes your mattress banana-shaped.

An indeterminate pustule which could be either a pimple or a bite.

(Archaic) The unsavory parts of a moat which a knight has to pour out of his armor after being the victim of an araglin. In medieval Flanders, soup made from bealings was a very slightly sought-after delicacy.

The optimum vantage point from which to view people undressing in the bedroom across the street.

The small bone buttons placed in bacon sandwiches by unemployed dentists.

A lurching sensation in the pit of the stomach experienced at breakfast in a hotel, occasioned by the realization that it is about now that the chambermaid will have discovered the embarrassing stain on your bottom sheet.

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.

A knob of someone else's chewing gum which you unexpectedly find your hand resting on under the passenger seat of your car or on somebody's thigh under their skirt.

Someone who aspires to work in a tollbooth.

The triumphant slamming shut of a book after reading the final page.

One who beams benignly after burping.

The irrevocable and sturdy fart released in the presence of royalty, which sounds like quite a small motorbike passing by (but not enough to be confused with one).

The massive three-course midmorning blowout enjoyed by a dieter who has already done his or her slimming duty by having a spoonful of cottage cheese for breakfast.

An unknown workmate who writes "All the best" on your going-away card.

1. The shape of a gourmet's lips.
2. The droplet of saliva which hangs from them.

The person in an office whom 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

A bauple so hideous and enormous that you have to cover it with a Band-Aid and pretend you've cut yourself shaving.

To slip foreign coins into a customer's change.

An opening gambit before a game of chess whereby the missing pieces are replaced by small ornaments from the mantelpiece.

Any middle-of-the-road radio chat show.

Scientific measure of luminosity: I glimmer = 100,000 bleans. Usherettes' torches are designed to produce 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.

A look someone gives you that indicates that he's much too drunk to have understood anything you've said to him in the last twenty minutes.

The little slivers of bamboo 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.

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.

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

The noise through the wall that tells you that the people next door enjoy a better sex life than you do.

One of those brown plastic trays with bumps, placed upside down in boxes of chocolates to make you think you're getting two layers.

Of plumbing in old hotels, to make loud and unexplained noises in the night, particularly at about five o'clock in the morning.

The small scatterings of foreign coins and pennies 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.

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.

The huge pyramid of tin cans placed just inside the entrance to a supermarket.

The principle by which British roads are signposted.

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 faucets, and should not be confused with any stain caused by insufficient waggling of the willy (piddletrenthide).

Huge benign tumors that archdeacons and old chemistry teachers affect to wear on the sides of their noses.

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.

(Medical) A small, long-handled steel trowel used by surgeons to remove the contents of a patient's nostrils prior to a sinus operation.

One who spends all day loafing about near pedestrian crossings looking as if he's about to cross.

Very much inclined to see how far you can push someone.

A schoolteacher's old hairy jacket, now severely discolored by chalk dust, ink, egg and the precipitations of unedifying chemical reactions.

One who is skilled in the art of naming loaves.

A disease of artificial plants.

The part of the toenail which is designed to snag on nylon sheets.

To suddenly remember where it is you're meant to be going after you've already been driving for ten minutes.

A perfectly reasonable explanation. (Such as one offered by a person with a gurgling cough which has nothing to do with the fact that they smoke fifty cigarettes a day.)

(Old Norse) The first day of winter on which your breath condenses in the air.

A pair of trousers with a career behind them. Broats are most commonly seen on elderly retired army officers. Originally the broats were part of their best suit back in the thirties; then in the fifties they were demoted 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.

A brompton is that which is said to have been committed when you are convinced you are about to fart with a resounding trumpeting noise in a public place and all that actually slips out is a tiny "pfpt."

Any urban environment containing a small amount of dog turd and about forty-five tons of bent steel pylon or a lump of concrete with holes claiming to be sculpture.

"Oh, come my dear, and come with me And wander 'neath the bromsgrove tree"

• Betjeman

One who has been working at the 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.

The fake antique plastic seal on a pretentious whiskey bottle.

The single unappetizing bun left in a baker's shop after 4:00 P.M.

A nipple clearly defined through flimsy or wet material.

A polite joke reserved for use in the presence of vicars.

To fart underwater.

A virulent red-colored pus that generally accompanies clonmult and sadberge

The sound made by an elevator full of people all trying to breathe through their noses.

(Medical) The scabs on knees and elbows formed by a compulsion to make love on cheap floormatting.

That peculiarly tuneless humming and whistling adopted by people who are extremely angry.

(Archaic) A seventeenth-century crime by which excrement is thrown into the street from a ground-floor window.

Condition to which yates will suddenly pass without apparent intervening period, after the spirit of the throckmorton has finally been summoned by incessant throcking

The bluebottle fly one is too tired to get up and swat, but not tired enough to sleep through.

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.

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 nosebleeds.

The pleasurable cool sloosh of puddle water over the toes of your rubber boots.

The high-pitched and insistent cry of the young male human urging one of its peer group to do something dangerous on a cliff edge or piece of toxic waste ground.

The ingredient in coffee creamer that rises to the surface as scum.

The frustration of not being able to remember what an acronym stands for.

The rushes of emotion triggered by overheard snatches of an old song.

The noise of a spinning hubcap coming to rest.

Determined not to let someone see how much his inadvertent remark has hurt you.

A poorly tossed caber.

In any box of After Eight Mints, there is always a large number of empty envelopes and no more than four or five actual mints. The cannock chase is the process by which, no matter which part of the box you insert your fingers into, or how 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 that steal your ideas to sell chocolates with.

The desire of married couples to see their single friends pair off.

Trying not to be driven up the wall by the opinions of someone whom circumstances will not allow you to argue with.

An embarrassing nickname by which a fourteen-year-old boy insists that he now wishes to be known.

The last few sprigs or tassles of last Christmas's decorations you notice on the ceiling while lying on the sofa on an August afternoon.

The foul-smelling wind which precedes an underground train.

A newly fashionable ethnic stew which, however much everyone raves about it, seems to you to have rather a lot of fish heads in it.

One whose life appears not to have moved on in any direction at all when you meet him again ten years later.

The disgust and embarrassment (or "ongar") felt by an observer in the presence of a person festooned with kirbies, 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").

A clabby conversation is one struck up by a commissionaire or cleaning lady in order to avoid any further actual work. The opening gambit is usually designed to provoke the maximum onfusion, and therefore the longest possible clabby conversation. It is vitally important to learn the correct, or clixby, response to a clabby gambit, and not to get trapped by a ditherington. 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."

The technical term for a single page of script from an Australian soap opera.

The sound made by knocking over an elephant's-foot umbrella stand full of walking sticks.

Nervously indecisive about how safely to dispose of a dud light bulb.

(Archaic) One who assists an exorcist by squeezing whichever part of the possessed the exorcist deems useful.

Allowing yourself to be persuaded to do something and pretending to be reluctant.

The condition in which it becomes impossible to put on a tie correctly when in a hurry for an important meeting.

Politely rude. Briskly vague. Firmly uninformative.

The precise instant at which scrambled eggs are ready.

A yellow ooze usually found near secretions of buldoo and sadberge.

One who actually looks forward to putting up the Christmas decorations in the office.

A leg which has gone to sleep and has to be hauled around after you.

People who just won't go.

(Vulg.) Long elasticated loop of snot which connects a pulled bogey to a nose.

One who is employed to stand about all day browsing through the magazine rack at a newsstand.

Strange-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.

Astounded at what you've just managed to get away with.

An object which is almost totally indistinguishable from a newspaper, the one crucial difference being that it belongs to somebody else and is unaccountably 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 someone else read it.

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 absolutely not an invitation to phone you or turn up unannounced on your doorstep three months later.

The moment at which two people, approaching from opposite ends of a long passageway, recognize each other and immediately pretend they haven't. This is to avoid the ghastly embarrassment of having to continue recognizing each other the whole length of the corridor.

To avert the horrors of corrievorrie, corriecravie is usually employed. This is the cowardly but highly skilled process by which both protagonists continue to approach while keeping up the pretense 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.

The crucial moment of false recognition in a long passageway encounter. 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 particularly delighted to have done so), shouting out, "Haaaaalllllloooo!" as if to say "Good grief!! You!! Here!! Of all people! Well, I never. Coo. Stap me vitals," etc.

The dreadful sinking sensation in a long passageway encounter when both protagonists immediately realize they have plumped for the corriedoo much too early, as they are still a good thirty yards apart. They were embarrassed by the pretense of corriecravie and decided to make use of the corriedoo because they felt silly. This was a mistake, as corrievorrie will make them seem far sillier.

The kind of person who can make a complete mess of a simple job like walking down a corridor.

Corridor etiquette demands that once a corriedoo 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.

A very short peremptory service held in monasteries prior to teatime to offer thanks for the benediction of digestive biscuits.

A piece of wood used to stir paint and thereafter stored uselessly in a shed in perpetuity.

A set of twelve cowcaddens makes an ideal and completely baffling wedding gift.

To shout boisterously from a cliff.

Crail is a common kind of rock or gravel found widely across the British Isles. Each individual stone (due to an as-yet-undiscovered gravitational 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 in submarines.

A mood of irrational irritation with everyone and everything.

The light working lunch which Ann Hathaway used to make for her husband.

To agree sycophantically with a taxi driver.

The brittle sludge which clings to the top of ketchup bottles and plastic tomatoes in nasty diners.

A letter to the editor made meaningless because it refers to a previous letter you didn't read (see A. H. Hedgehope, July 3rd).

To spend large periods of your life looking for car keys.

Perfectly content to stare at something for no particular reason.

Continually making small talk to someone who is trying to read a book.

Dalrymples are the things you pay extra for on pieces of handmade craftwork — the rough edges, the paint smudges and the holes in the glazing.

A certain facial expression of which actors are required to demonstrate their mastery before they are allowed to play Macbeth.

Measure = 0.0000176 mg. Defined as that amount of margarine capable of covering one hundred slices of bread to a depth of one molecule. This is the legal maximum allowed in sandwich bars in Greater London.

To hold out hope for a better invitation until the last possible moment.

One who performs drum solos on his knees.

The gummy substance found between damp toes.

Things that clergymen opine on that are none of their damn business.

The hideous stuff on the shelves of a rented house.

The two little lines that come down from your nose.

The part of the hymn (usually a few notes at the end of the verse) where the tune goes so high or low that you suddenly have to change octaves to accommodate it.

A decision that's very hard to make because so little depends on it—like which way to walk around a park.

(Of the hands and feet) Prunelike after an overlong bath.

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 littleknown fact that the confetti at Princess Margaret's wedding was made up of thousands of didcots collected by inspectors on the Royal Train.

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.

To nod thoughtfully while someone gives you a long and complex set of directions which you know you're never going to remember.

One who always plays "Chopsticks" on the piano.

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.

Sudden access of panic experienced by one who realizes that he is being drawn inexorably into a clabby conversation, i.e., one he has no hope of enjoying, benefiting from or understanding.

The now-hardboiled bits of nastiness which have to be picked off crockery by hand after it has been through a dishwasher.

Facetious behavior adopted by an accused man in the mistaken belief that this will endear him to the judge.

Of dog owners, to adopt the absurd pretense that the animal shitting in the gutter has nothing to do with them.

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.

Someone else's throaty cough which obscures the crucial part of the rather amusing remark you've just made.

Technical term for one of the very lame excuses written in very small print on the side of packets of food or detergent powder to explain why there's hardly anything inside. Examples include "Contents may have settled in transit" and "To keep biscuits fresh, they have been individually wrapped in silver paper and cellophane and separated with corrugated lining, a cardboard flap and heavy industrial tires."

An infuriating person who always manages to look much more dashing than anyone else by turning up unshaven and hung over at a formal party.

Name for a shop which is supposed to be witty but is in fact wearisome, e.g., "The Frock Exchange," "Hair Apparent," etc.

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, apologize, step to the left again, bump into each other and repeat as often as unnecessary.

The earthquake that occurs when a character in a cartoon runs into a wall.

The bruise or callus on the shoulder of someone who has been knighted unnecessarily often.

A look given by a superior person to someone who has arrived wearing the wrong sort of shoes.

The most deformed potato in any given collection of potatoes.

The last page of a document that you always leave facedown in the photocopier and have to go and retrieve later.

The person in front of you in the supermarket queue who has just unloaded a bulging shopping cart onto the conveyor belt and is now in the process of trying to work out which pocket he left his checkbook in, and indeed which pair of trousers.

Sudden realization, as you lie in bed waiting for the alarm to go off, that it should have gone off an hour ago.

The smell of a taxi out of which people have just got.

A highly specialized fiscal term used solely by turnstile operatives at the zoo. It refers to the variable amount of increase in the 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.

The realization that the train you have patiently watched pulling out of the station was the one you were meant to be on.

The name of Charles Bronson's retirement cottage.

The uneasy feeling that the plastic handles of the overloaded supermarket bag you are carrying are getting steadily longer.

Someone who always wants to do whatever you want to do.

An improvised umbrella.

A small child hired to bounce at dawn on the occupants of the spare bedroom in order to save on tea and alarm clocks.

Mentally incapacitated by a severe hangover.

The sludgy bits in the bottom of a trash can, underneath the actual trash can liner.

Wondering what to do next when you've just stormed out of something.

The same as West Wittering, only it's you they're trying to get away from.

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.

Thin and haggard as a result of strenuously trying to get healthy.

A bead of sweat which runs down your bottom cleavage.

The first, tiniest inkling you get that something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong.

Measure of time and noiselessness defined as the moment between the doors of an elevator closing and its beginning to move. Scientists believe we spend up to one-fifth of our lives in elevators.

One of the initiation rituals of the Freemasons which they are no longer allowed to do.

The futile movements of forefingers and eyebrows used when failing to attract the attention of waiters and bartenders.

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.

The precise value of the usefulness of epping. It is a little-known fact that an earlier draft of Clark Gable's final line of the film Gone With the Wind had him 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 Iowa, or indeed anywhere.

A brown bubble of cheese containing gaseous matter which grows on Welsh rarebit. It was Sir Alexander Fleming's study of eribolls that led, indirectly, to his discovery of the fact that he didn't like Welsh rarebit much.

One of those who push taps installed in public washrooms enabling the user to wash his 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 Grand Central Station.

Long, slow sigh emitted by a fake leather armchair when sat on.

(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.

The bullshit with which a chairman introduces a guest speaker.

The smile bestowed on you by an airline hostess.

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 plastic piece left over which means you have to undo everything and start all over again.

A long-winded, dishonest and completely incredible excuse used when the truth would have been perfectly acceptable.

The draft that whistles between two bottoms that refuse to touch.

(Archaic) An ancient edict, mysteriously omitted from the Domesday Book, requiring that the feeding of fowl on village ponds should be carried out equitably.

The feeling that you get at about four o'clock in the afternoon when you haven't got enough done.

A long and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to undo someone's bra.

To lay place settings with the knives and forks the wrong way around.

One who is very excited that he's had a better idea than the one you've just suggested.

In any division of foodstuffs equally between several people, to give yourself the extra slice left over.

A remark intended to cue applause at a Republican convention..

The safe place you put something and forget where it was.

That part of a raincoat that trails out of a car after you've closed the door on it.

Someone who always seems to disappear into shops when you're walking along talking to him.

One of those irritating handleless slippery translucent plastic bags you get in supermarkets which, no matter how you hold them, always contrive to let something fall out.

(Scots) An ankle-length oilskin worn by deep-sea herring fishermen in Nantucket and publicans in Glasgow.

Women who only talk to each other at parties.

Unable to find the right moment to leave.

To cut ahead in line very discreetly by working one's way up the line without being spotted..

Refusing to say what it is you're looking so bloody wistful about.

(Archaic) The right of the lord of the manor to molest dwarves on their birthdays.

A taxi driver's gesture, a raised hand pointed out of the window which purports to mean "Thank you" but actually means "Fuck off out of my way."

The small awkward-shaped piece of cheese which remains after grating a large regularshaped piece of cheese, and which enables you to grate your fingers.

A kind of burglar alarm in common usage. It is cunningly designed so that it can ring at full volume in the street without apparently disturbing anyone.

Other types of framlinghams 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 till 9:20 A.M. on Monday morning.

(Measure) The legal minimum distance between two trains on the District and Circle lines of the London Underground. A frant, which must be no 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).

The shade of green which is supposed to make you feel comfortable in hospitals, industrious in schools and uneasy in police stations.

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.

Exaggerated carefree saunter adopted by Charlie Chaplin as an immediate prelude to dropping down an open manhole.

The noise made by a light bulb which has just shone its last.

A paragraph that you get stuck on in a book. The more often you read it through the less it means to you.

(Measure) The minimum time it is necessary to spend frowning in deep concentration at each picture in an art gallery in order that everyone else doesn't think you're a complete moron.

The lecherous looks exchanged between sixteen-year-olds at a party given by someone's parents.

Rather too eager to be cruel to be kind.

Pretending not to be in when the carol singers come around.

Someone who deliberately misunderstands things for, he hopes, humorous effect.

A form of particularly long sparse sideburns which are part of the mandatory turnout of British Rail guards.

Of the behavior of a bottom lip trying to spit out mouthwash after an injection at the dentist. Hence, loose, floppy, useless.

"She went all Gallipoli in his arms." -Noël Coward

Embarrassed stammer you emit when a voice answers the phone and you realize that you haven't the faintest recollection of who it is you've just rung.

Narrow wiggly furrow left after pulling a hair off a painted surface.

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 your lips.

The action of putting your finger in your cheek and flicking it out with a "pock" noise.

Useful specially new-coined word for an illegitimate child (in order to distinguish it from someone who merely cuts you off on the highway, etc.).

Descriptive of the mood indicated by cartoonists by drawing a character's mouth as a wavy line.

Someone who, through the injudicious application of alcohol, is now a great deal less funny than he thinks he is.

Descriptive of a joke someone tells you that starts well but becomes so embellished in the telling that you start to weary of it after scarcely half an hour.

Hidden sharply pointed object which stabs you in the cuticle when you reach into a small pot.

The warm tingling you get in your feet when having a really good piddle.

The fishlike opening and closing of the jaws seen among people who have recently been to the dentist and are puzzled as to whether their teeth have been put back the right way up.

The feeling of infinite sadness engendered when walking through a place filled with happy people fifteen years younger than yourself. When experienced too frequently, it is likely to lead to an attack of trunch.

A seaside pebble which was shiny and interesting when wet, and which is now a lump of rock, which children nevertheless insist on filling their suitcases with after the holiday.

The state of a barrister's flat greasy hair after wearing a wig all day.

The kind of guilt that you'd completely forgotten about that comes roaring back on discovering an old letter in a cupboard.

Any Scottish actor who wears a cravat.

A particular kind of tartan hold-all, made exclusively under license for British Airways. When waiting to collect your luggage from an airport conveyor belt, you will notice that on the next conveyor belt there is always a single, 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.

Series of small steps by which someone who has made a serious tactical error in conversation or argument moves from complete disagreement to wholehearted agreement.

(Scots) A small tartan pouch worn beneath the kilt during the thistle harvest.

A hat that politicians buy to go to Russia in.

One who takes pleasure in informing others about his bowel movements.

A rogue blob of food. Glossops, which are generally steaming hot and highly adhesive, invariably fall off your spoon and onto 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 may be employed.

The pinkish mulch found in the bottom of a lady's handbag.

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.

Wonderful rush of relief on discovering that the ely and the wembley were in fact false alarms.

The piece of adhesive tape on a nearsighted child's spectacles.

Blank, sly and faintly embarrassed. Pertaining to the expression seen on the face of someone who has clearly forgotten your name.

An afternoon wasted on watching an old movie on TV.

The puddle on the bar into which the barman puts your change.

(Archaic) A pair of wooden trousers worn by poultry keepers in the Middle Ages.

Something left over from preparing or eating a meal, which you store in the fridge despite the fact that you know full well that you will never ever use it.

A fat book containing four words and six cartoons which costs $20.00.

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.

Someone who continually annoys you by continually apologizing for annoying you.

(Rare) To stick to the point during a family argument.

A shade of green which makes you wish you'd painted whatever it was a different color.

The person in a crisis who can always be relied on to make a good anecdote out of it.

Large body of cars on a highway all traveling at exactly the speed limit because one of them is a police car.

A small bush from which cartoon characters dangle over the edge of a cliff.

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. Grimsbies can be purchased in bulk from any respectable Masonic butcher upon giving him the secret Masonic handbag. One is then placed in a guest's food to see if he knows the correct Masonic method of dealing with it. This is as follows: Remove the grimsby carefully with the silver tongs provided. Cross the room to your host, hopping on one leg, and ram the grimsby firmly up his nose, chanting, "Take that, you smug Masonic bastard."

The state of a woman'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.

One who continually and publicly rearranges the position of his genitals.

The only bits of an animal left after even the people who make sausage rolls have been at it.

The resolve with which the Queen sits through five days of Polynesian folk dancing.

Deformation of the palate caused by biting into too many Toblerones.

Queasy but unbowed. The kind of feeling one gets when discovering a plastic compartment in a fridge in which things are growing, usually fertilized by copious quantities of goosnargh.

The small particle that you always think you've got stuck in the back of your throat after you've been sick.

Dress-making talk.

A coat hanger recycled as a car aerial.

Resistant to tweezers.

A sharp instrument placed in the basin which makes it easier to cut yourself.

Someone who looked a lot more attractive in the disco than she does in your bed the next morning.

An adhesive cloth designed to fasten baby clothes together. Thousands of tiny pieces of jam "hook" on to thousands of pieces of dribble, enabling the cloth to become "sticky."

The green synthetic Astroturf on which greengrocers display their vegetables.

The name for the adventurous party-goers who don't spend the whole time in the kitchen.

The sound of a single-engined aircraft flying by, heard while lying in a meadow in New England, which somehow concentrates the silence and sense of space and timelessness and leaves one with the feeling of something or other.

Congenitally incapable of ever having a paper tissue.

The amusement caused by passport photos.

To annoy people by finishing their sentences for them and then telling them what they really meant to say.

To maneuver a double mattress down a winding staircase.

A particular kind of fly which lives inside double glazing.

To redistribute the hot water in a bath.

The person who takes the blame while the manager you demanded to see hides in his office.

The coda to a phone conversation, consisting of about eight exchanges, by which people try gracefully to get off the line.

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.

The pocket down the back of an armchair used for storing pennies and bits of Lego.

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.

The tiny snippets of beard which coat the inside of a washbasin after shaving in it.

One who loudly informs other diners in a restaurant what kind of man he is by calling the chef by his Christian name from the lobby.

Any gardening implement found in a tool shed whose exact purpose is unclear.

A violent argument that 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.

A dried yellow substance found between the prongs of forks in restaurants.

To sculpt the contents of a sugar bowl.

The correct name for the gold medallion worn by someone who is in the habit of wearing his shirt open to the waist.

To try to sort out which sleeve of a sweater is inside out when you're already halfway through putting it on.

The panic caused by half hearing a public-address system.

In a mood to swipe at vegetation with a stick.

The record you find in someone else's collection which instantly tells you you could never go out with them.

The marks left on the outside breast pocket of a storekeeper's overall where he put away his pen and missed.

The practice of infuriating theatergoers by not only arriving late to a center-row seat, but also loudly apologizing to and patting each member of the audience in turn.

To be caught in a hidcote bartram is to say a series of protracted and final good-byes to a group of people and then realize that you've left your hat behind.

The topmost tread of a staircase which disappears when you're climbing the stairs in darkness.

Goosnargh three weeks later.

(Medical) A sperm which carries a high risk of becoming a bank manager.

The awkward leaping maneuver a girl has to go through in bed in order to make him sleep on the wet patch.

An "injured" footballer's limp back into the game which draws applause but doesn't fool anybody.

The wooden safety platform supported by scaffolding around a building under construction from which the builders (at almost no personal risk) can drop pieces of cement on passersby.

To deny indignantly something which is palpably true.

The action of overshaking a pair of dice in a cup in the mistaken belief that this will affect the eventual outcome in your favor and not irritate everyone else.

To dissemble in a fruity manner, like William F. Buckley.

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 terrible stutter.

(Of a TV newsreader) To continue to stare impassively into the camera when it should have already switched to the sports report.

The aggressiveness with which a shop assistant sells you any piece of high technology which they don't understand themselves.

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.

A half erection large enough to be a publicly embarrassing bulge in the trousers, but not large enough to be of any use to anybody.

To crouch upward, as in the movement a seated person's feet and legs make to allow a vacuum cleaner to pass beneath them.

Someone who excitedly opens a letter that says, "You may already have won £10,000" on the outside.

Descriptive of the smell of a weekend cottage.

To move like the cheeks of a very fat person as his car goes over a cattle grid.

An erection that won't go down when a gentleman has to go to the lavatory in the middle of dallying with a lady.

The result of coming to the wrong decision.

Medieval ceremonial brass horn with which the successful execution of an araglin is trumpeted from the castle battlements.

(Archaic) A burn sustained as a result of the behavior of a clumsy hutler. (The precise duties of hutlers are now lost in the mists of history.)

The fibrous algae which grows in the dark, moist environment of trouser cuffs.

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.

Clever but lazy.

Anything used to make a noise on a corrugated iron wall or chainlink fence by dragging it along the surface while walking past it.

"Mr Bennett thoughtfully selected a stout ibstock and left the house." -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, II

To lean from side to side while watching a car chase in the cinema.

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.

To spot that both people in a heated argument are talking complete rubbish.

Addressing someone by mumble because you can only remember the first letter of their name.

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 wants to mention.

A useless writing implement made by taping six ballpoint pens together, which is supposed to make it easier to write one hundred lines.

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.

Cautious movements toward the bathroom in a strange house in the dark.

The alacrity with which a grimbister breaks up as soon as the police car turns off.

An agricultural device which, when towed behind a tractor, enables the farmer to spread his dung evenly across the width of the road.

(Medical) A massive facial spasm which is brought on by being told a really astounding piece of news. A mysterious attack of jawcraig affected forty thousand sheep in Wales in 1952.

Conversation between two soccer hooligans on a train.

Persons who honestly believe that a business lunch is going to achieve anything.

The piece of paper on top of the jam inside the jam jar.

In breach of the laws of joke telling, e.g., giving away the punch line in advance.

(Old French) Polite word for a well-proportioned dog turd.

The material from which all the clothes in Woolworth's are made.

Awful things bought in Nairobi that never look good at home.

A loose woolen garment reaching to the knees and with three or more armholes, knitted by the wearer's well-meaning but incompetent aunt.

Only slightly relevant to the matter in hand.

The cutesy humming noise you make as you go to kiss someone on the cheek.

The ancient Eastern art of being able to fold road maps properly.

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.

The horrible smell caused by washing ashtrays.

The action of looking for something all over again in all the places you've already looked.

A measure. Defined as that proportion of a menu which the waiter speaks that you can actually remember.

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 at all.

Fitting exactly and satisfyingly. The cardboard box that slides neatly into a small space in a garage, or the last book which precisely fills a bookshelf, is said to fit "real nice and kentucky."

The small twist of skin which separates each sausage on a string.

The marks left on your bottom or thighs after sunbathing on a wicker chair.

The quality of not being able to pee while being watched.

The footling amount of money by which the price of a given article in a shop is less than a sensible number, in the hope that at least one idiot will think it cheap. For instance, the kibblesworth on a pair of shoes priced at $19.99 is I cent.

A pen kept in the desk tidy that never works.

The light breeze which blows through your armpit hair when you are stretched out sunbathing.

A forty-year-old overweight man trying to commit suicide by jogging.

Small but repulsive piece of food prominently attached to a person's face or clothing. See also chipping ongar.

One who kindly attempts to wipe a kirby 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."

Man who owns all the latest sporting gadgetry and clothing (golf cart, tee cosies, ventilated shoes, Gary Player autographed tracksuit top, American navy cap, mirror sunglasses) but is still only on his second golf lesson.

The girl who always offers to make the tea.

The little blobs of dried urine on the rim of the bowl under the seat.

The mysterious fluff placed in your pockets by dry-cleaning firms.

One who goes to an Indian restaurant and orders an omelette.

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."

The inability of a New York cabdriver to know where, for instance, Central Park is.

Feeling better for having put pajamas on.

The folder on hotel dressing tables full of astoundingly dull information.

The fifth member of a foursome.

The daze which follows turning on the light in the middle of the night.

Motorists' name for the kind of pedestrian who stands beside a main road and waves on the traffic, as if it's his right of way.

Struggling to extrude an extremely large turd.

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 a liquor store and one bought in a duty-free shop.

Irritating pains that your doctor tells you not to be so upset about.

The business of making silly faces at babies.

A person who can be relied upon to be doing worse than you.

Crystallized deposits of old cough mixture.

Being undecided about whether or not you feel sexually attracted to someone.

A common object or experience for which no word yet exists.

The correct name for one of those little paper umbrellas which come in cocktails with too much pineapple juice in them.

Descriptive of the pleasant smell of an empty biscuit tin.

To touch battery terminals with one's tongue.

All stiff and achy in the morning and trying to remember why.

The small mat on the bar designed to be more absorbent than the bar, but not as absorbent as your elbows.

The member of any class who most inclines the teacher toward the view that capital punishment should be introduced in schools.

Descriptive of the waggling movement of a person's hands when shaking water from them or warming up for a piece of workshop theater.

Unshakable belief that your ears stick out.

The long unaccompanied wail in the middle of a Scottish folk song where the pipers nip round the corner for a couple of drinks.

A person with a low threshold of boredom.

A droplet which persists in running out of your nose.

One of those middle-aged ladies with just a hint of a luxuriant handlebar mustache.

The deep and peaceful sleep you finally fall into two minutes before the alarm goes off.

The sort of man who wears loud check jackets, has a personalized tankard behind the bar and always gets served before you do.

Seductive remark made hopefully in the back of a taxi.

A quiet little unregarded man in glasses who is building a new kind of atomic bomb in his garden shed.

Common solution to the problem of a humby.

The correct name for "navel fluff."

(Of a large group of people who have been to the cinema together) To 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 just go home, or have a Chinese meal nearby—until by the time agreement is reached everything is shut.

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.

The bit of somebody's body which their partner particularly likes.

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.

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.

Hearty feeling that comes from walking on the moors with rubber boots and cold ears.

(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 moment.

The piece of leather which hangs off the bottom of your shoe before you can be bothered to get it mended.

A bubble behind a piece of wallpaper.

The fold of flesh pushing forward over the top of a bra which is too small for the lady inside it.

The horseshoe-shaped rug which goes around a lavatory seat.

The opposite of green thumbs—the effortless propensity to cause plant death.

The artificial chuckle in the voice-over at the end of a supposedly funny television commercial.

A lid. A lydd differs from a lid in that it has nothing to be a lid of, is at least eighteen months old, and is sold in Ye Olde Antique Shoppes.

The opposite of a mavis enderby. An unrequited early love of your life who inexplicably still causes terrible pangs even though she married a telephone engineer.

A homosexual vicar.

One of those things that pulls the electric cord back into a vacuum cleaner.

The inexpressible horror experienced on waking up in the morning and remembering that you are still Scotty in Star Trek.

An authoritative, confident opinion based on one you read in a newspaper.

All excited at suddenly remembering a wonderful piece of gossip that you want to pass on to somebody.

The height by which the top of a wave exceeds the height to which you have rolled up your trousers.

A recourtship ritual. The tentative and reluctant touching of spouses' toes in bed after a row.

The small holes in a loaf of bread which give rise to the momentary suspicion that something may have made its home within.

A hideous piece of chipboard veneer furniture bought in a suburban main-street furniture store and designed to hold exactly a year's supply of Sunday color supplements.

The unexpectedly intimate bond that forms between two people you introduce to each other, who then exclude you.

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 identity card.

Stealing a single piece of fruit from a street stall.

The bottom drawer in the kitchen your mother keeps her paper bags in.

A person to whom, under dire injunctions of silence, you tell a secret which you wish to be far more widely known.

The sap of a giant Nigerian tree from which all cafeteria jams are made.

Those items and particles which people who have just blown their noses are searching for when they look into their hankies.

The stuff belonging to a mavis enderby that keeps turning up in odd corners of your house.

The almost completely forgotten girlfiend from your distant past for whom your wife has a completely irrational jealousy and hatred.

One who recklessly tells total strangers to cheer up, it may never happen.

To blunder around a woman's breasts in a way that does absolutely nothing for her.

Warm and very slightly clammy. Descriptive of the texture of your hands after you've tried to dry them on a hot-air-blowing automatic hand-drying machine.

A TV celebrity who rises to fame by being extremely camp.

The name of the style of decoration used in cocktail lounges in mock-Tudor hotels in Los Angeles.

A patent antiwrinkle cream which policemen wear to keep themselves looking young.

The little bits of yellow fluff which get trapped in the hinge of the windshield wipers after polishing the car with a new duster.

The little trick people use to remind themselves which is left and which is right.

A period of complete silence on the radio, which means that it must be tuned to NPR.

The thing that rattles around inside an aerosol can.

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.

That which two very boring people have in common which enables you to get away from them.

The expression on a man's face when he has just zipped up his trousers without due care and attention.

A mixture of toothpaste and saliva in a washbasin.

That part of your coat which is designed to be sat on by the person next to you on a bus.

One who goes around complaining that he was cleverer ten years ago.

The last little tear before someone cheers up.

The condition of one's face after performing cunnilingus.

The kind of family that drives to the beach and then sits in the car with all the windows closed, reading the TV Guide and wearing sidcups.

The bundle of hair which is left after a monk has been tonsured, which he keeps tied up with a rubber band and uses for chasing ants away.

Faintly nervous that a particular post box "won't work" when posting an important letter.

The fourth wheel of a supermarket cart which looks identical to the other three but renders the cart completely uncontrollable.

(Medical) The substance from which the unpleasant little yellow globules in the corners of a sleepy person's eyes are made.

An infidel who stains his face with walnut juice in order to enter Mecca or appear in a sitcom.

An unwholesome substance that clings to the fingers of successful tomb robbers.

A meadow selected, while 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.

A person who continually brings up the subject of property prices.

The wine-making region of Albania where most of the Aasleagh comes from.

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 it is in some way chummy or endearing.

Measure defined as the distance between a driver's outstretched fingertips and the ticket machine in an automatic parking lot. One nad = 18.4 cm.

To hang around the table being too shy to sit next to the person you really want to.

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 which sounds like a request to help with setting the table.

The secret pocket that eats your train ticket.

A late-night snack, invented by the Earl of Nantwich, which consists of the dampest thing in the fridge. The Earl, who lived in a flat in Clapham, invented the nantwich to avoid having to go shopping.

The tiny depressions in a piece of Ryvita.

A plastic packet containing shampoo, mustard, etc., which is impossible to open except by biting off the corners.

The rather unconvincing noises of pretended interest which an adult has to make when brought a small dull object for admiration by a child.

Any ensemble of especially unflattering and peculiar garments worn by someone which tells you that they are right at the forefront of fashion.

The feeling experienced when driving off for the very first time on a brand-new motorbike.

One who constantly needs to be repersuaded of something they've already agreed to.

Descriptive of a person walking barefoot on gravel.

The dark piece of velvet which has been brushed against the nap.

A driver who indicates left and turns right.

That part of a pair of scissors used to bang in a picture hook.

One who dresses like an ethnic minority to which they do not belong.

Latin suffix meaning: question expecting the answer "Oh, really? How interesting."

Any word that looks as if it's probably another word backwards but turns out not to be.

The collective name for things which you find a use for immediately after you have 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 twentyfour hours you will urgently need to wrap a large parcel, and suddenly remember that luckily in your greenhouse there is some cardb…

The kind of person who has to leave before a party can relax and enjoy itself.

Able to go on a two-week holiday with hardly any luggage.

To move a piano.

The amount of small change found in the lining of an old jacket which just saves your bacon.

In a choice between two or more possible desserts, the one nobody plumps for.

Of married couples, using a term of endearment as a term of censure or reproach.

The sort of person who takes the elevator to travel one floor.

The cute little circle or heart over an i used by teenage girls when writing their names.

An electrical switch which appears to be off in both positions.

Ridiculously overenthusiastic about going to the Pacific Northwest.

A gate-crasher you can't get rid of because he's become the life and soul of the party.

Piece of caring reassurance which all parties know is completely untrue. As in "a load of…"

One who has been completely outfitted at Burberry's but is still, nevertheless, clearly from Idaho.

A point made for the seventh time to somebody who insists that he knows exactly what you mean but clearly hasn't got the faintest idea.

The noise made by someone who has just been grossly flattered and is trying to make light of it.

That part of a three-color ballpoint which renders it instantly useless.

A frilly spare-toilet-roll cosy.

Trying to see past the person sitting in front of you in the cinema.

(Old Norse) Small brass wind instrument used for summoning Vikings to lunch when they're off on their longships, playing.

The inability to find a comfortable position to lie in bed.

Someone you don't want to invite to a party but whom you know you have to as a matter of duty.

To walk along leaning sideways, with one arm hanging limp and dragging one leg behind the other. Most commonly used by actors in amateur productions of Richard III, or by people carrying a heavy suitcase in one hand.

One who can kiss and chew gum at the same time.

One who offers to help just after all the work has been done.

(Fencing term) The play, or maneuver, where one swordsman leaps onto the table and pulls the battle-ax off the wall.

The final state of mind of a retired colonel before they come to take him away.

An actor whose only talent is to stay fat.

Something drawn or modeled by a small child which you are supposed to know what it is.

A middle-aged man's overlong haircut, intended to make him look younger.

To do what babies do to soup with their spoons.

Technical term for the fifth take of an orgasm scene during the making of a pornographic film.

Polite word for the act of washing one's genitals in the washbasin.

Nearly brave enough to dive into a cold swimming pool on a windy day.

God knows. Could be some sort of bird, I suppose.

The condition of a parish church after a heavy Saturday afternoon's wedlock.

Mysterious illness that afflicts recently deposed heads of state and means they aren't well enough to stand trial.

Something your next-door neighbor makes and insists that you try on your sausages.

Small, carefully rolled pellets of skegness.

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.

A South American ball game. The balls are whacked against a brick wall with a stout wooden bat until the prisoner confesses.

Welsh word which literally translates as "leaking-ballpoint-by-the-glass-hole-of-theclerk-of-the-bank-has-been-taken-to-anotherplace-leaving-only-the-special-inkwell-andthree-inches-of-tin-chain."

The expanding slotted arm on which a cuckoo comes out of a cuckoo clock.

The fear of peeling too few potatoes.

(English public-school slang) A prefect whose duty it is to surprise new boys at the urinal and humiliate them in a manner of his choosing.

One of those spray things used to wet ironing with.

The expression of innocent alarm seen on the face of someone guiltily surprised in the middle of a perusal.

Someone you don't want to be friends with who rings you up at eight-monthly intervals and suggests you get together soon.

(Archaic) The right to collect shingle from the king's foreshore.

A Gucci belt pouch for carrying condoms in.

The little hole in the end of a toothbrush.

The detritus found in wineglasses on the morning after a party.

A trouser stain caused by a wimbledon. Not to be confused with a botley.

The amount of coffee in the bottom of a jar which doesn't amount to a spoonful.

Small odd-shaped piece of plastic or curious metal component found in the bottom of a kitchen rummage drawer when spring cleaning or looking for Scotch tape.

One of those rubber nodules found on the underneath side of a lavatory seat.

An extremely neat old person.

That part of an oven that nobody wants or knows how to turn off.

The background gurgling noise heard in fastfood restaurants caused by people trying to get the last bubbles out of the milk-shakes by slurping loudly through their straws.

A middle- or upper-class person who affects a working-class style of speech.

Part of traditional mating rite. During the first hot day of spring, all the men in the subway start giving up their seats to ladies and strap-hanging. The purpose of pitsligo is to allow them to demonstrate their manhood by displaying the wet patches under their arms.

Descriptive of a drunk person's attempts to be endearing.

The nonwaterproof material that raincoats are made out of.

One more, or one less, than the number required.

The corrugations on the ankles caused by wearing tight socks.

The minuscule hole in the side of a ballpoint pen.

To relate an amusing story to someone without remembering that it was he who told it to you in the first place.

The knob on top of a war memorial.

The pointless tapping of a cigarette before getting on with the business of smoking it.

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.

A snake that can't be bothered to bite you.

The green bit of a carrot.

The lumps of dry powder that remain after cooking a packet of soup.

Gifted with ability to manipulate taps using only the feet.

Peevish, restless, inclined to pull the stuffing out of sofas.

One of those tiny ribbed-plastic and aluminium foil tubs of milk served on trains enabling you to carry one safely back to your compartment where you can spill the contents all over your legs in comfort trying to get the bloody thing open.

The ball, or muff, of soggy hair found clinging to bath overflow holes.

The mythical beast—part bird, part snake, part jam stain—which invariably wins children's painting competitions in the five-to-seven age group.

The stance adopted by a seaside comedian that tells you that the punch line is imminent.

Satisfied grunting noise made when sitting back after a good meal.

The eldest male in a soap opera family.

Dried remains of a week-old casserole, eaten when extremely drunk at 2:00 A.M.

To declaim loudly and pompously upon any subject about which one has less knowledge than at least one other person at the table.

Breasts of uneven weight.

The right of any member of the Royal Family to have people laugh at their jokes, however weedy.

Pretending to be proud to be single.

The curious-shaped flat wads of dough left on a kitchen table after someone has been cutting out scones.

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.

Boosting a man's ego by pretending to be unable to open a screw-top jar.

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.

The substances which emerge when you squeeze a blackhead.

To speak with the voice of one who requires another to do something for him.

A rabidly left-wing politician who can afford to be that way because he married a millionairess.

A stubborn spot on a window that you spend twenty minutes trying to clean off before discovering it's on the other side of the glass.

A person who no one has ever heard of who unaccountably manages to make a living writing prefaces.

The hatefulness of words like relionus and KopyKwik.

The single hemisphere of dried pea which is invariably found in an otherwise spotlessly clean saucepan.

All institutional buildings must, by law, contain at least twenty ramsgates. These are doors which open the opposite way to the one you expect.

People who, for their own obscure reasons, try to sleep with people who have slept with members of the Royal Family.

Fashion of trying ties so that the long thin end dangles below the short fat end.

Poetic term for the cleavage in a workman's bottom that peeks above the top of his trousers.

That part of a song lyric which you suddenly discover you've been mishearing for years.

The barely soiled sheet of toilet paper that signals the end of the bottom-wiping process.

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.

Fiddling around inside a magazine to remove all the stapled-in special-offer cards that make it impossible to read.

As much of an opera as most people can sit through.

The particularly impressive throw of a Frisbee which causes it to be lost.

(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.

The burst of applause that greets the sound of a plate smashing in a canteen.

One who is able to gain occupation of the armrests on both sides of their cinema or aircraft seat.

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."

The man behind you in church who sings with terrific gusto almost three-quarters of a tone off the note.

An unjust criticism of your ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend.

One who has the strength of character or loudness of voice to bring a lowthering session to an end.

A violent green shrub which is ground up, mixed with twigs and gelatin and served with clonmult and buldoo in a container referred to for no known reason as the "relish tray."

A particular kind of hideous casual jacket that nobody wears in real life, but which is much favored by Ed McMahon.

A faint taste of dishwashing liquid in a cup of tea.

One who fills in the gaps in conversations by beaming genially at people and saying, "Well, well, well, here we all are then," a lot.

To spray the person you are talking to with half-chewed breadcrumbs or small pieces of whitebait.

A joke told by someone who completely misjudges the temperament of the person to whom it is told.

To sew municipal crests onto a jacket in the belief that this will make the wearer appear cosmopolitan.

Horizontal avalanche of cassettes that slides across the interior of a car as it goes around a sharp corner.

A small dog which resembles a throw rug and appears to be dead.

One of those peculiar beards-without-mustaches worn by religious Belgians which help them look like trolls.

A person who looks around them when talking to you, to see if there's anyone more interesting about.

The flap of skin which is torn off your lip when trying to smoke an untipped cigarette.

A small hunting dog trained to snuffle amongst your private parts.

To make vague opening or cutting movements with the hands when wandering about looking for a can opener, scissors, etc., in the hope that this will help in some way.

A dustrag given to you by your mother which on closer inspection turns out to be half an underpant.

One of those dogs that has it off on your leg during tea.

To cut oneself while licking envelopes.

A person who, after the declaration of the bodmin, always says, "But I only had the tomato soup."

The absurd flap of hair a vain and balding man grows long above one ear to comb it plastered over the top of his head to the other ear.

To make the noise of a nylon windbreaker rubbing against a pair of corduroy trousers.

(Banking) The crossed-out bit caused by people putting the wrong year on their checks all through January.

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.

The tone that Gore Vidal adopts with interviewers.

The stout pubic hairs which protrude from your helping of moussaka in a cheap Greek restaurant.

Something that hits the window as a result of a violent sneeze.

One whose mouth actually hangs open when watching something mildly interesting on the other side of the street.

The last teaspoon in the washing up.

A duck web of snot caused by sneezing into your hand.

To make a noise like a train going along.

One who wears Trinidad and Tobago T-shirts on the beach in Bali to prove he didn't just win the holiday in a competition or anything.

The hoop of skin around a single slice of salami.

One who emerges unexpectedly from the wrong bedroom in the morning.

Measure of distance (equal to approximately seven-eighths of a mile), defined as the closest distance at which sheep remain picturesque.

An awkward shuffling walk caused by two or more people in a hurry accidentally getting in the same segment of a revolving door.

Lying about the state of your life in order to cheer up your parents.

Tall young men who stand around smiling at weddings as if to suggest that they know the bride rather well.

The vague uncomfortable feeling you get when sitting on a seat that is still warm from somebody else's bottom.

One of those tubes made of yellow plastic that builders use to get rubble off the top floor of a house.

A fold in a pair of stockings that aren't tight enough for a pair of thin legs.

Perfectly willing to appear on the Jay Leno show.

One of those hats made from tying knots in the corners of a handkerchief.

Anything used in lieu of a toothpick.

(Medical) The inability to remember, at the critical moment, which is the better side of the boat to be seasick off.

Something that was sticky, and is now furry, found on the carpet under the sofa on the morning after a party.

The little movement of false modesty by which a woman with a cavernous visible cleavage pulls her skirt down over her knees.

One of those conversations where both people are waiting for the other one to shut up so they can get on with their bit.

Sudden outbreak of cones strung on a highway.

A Swedish casserole made of elk livers.

Nose excreta of a malleable consistency.

A very, very old solicitor.

Descriptive of the satisfaction experienced when looking at a really good dry-stone wall.

The flakes of athlete's foot found inside socks.

Apparently self-propelled little dance a beer glass performs in its own puddle.

The noise made by a sunburned thigh leaving a plastic chair.

The tiny garden sprinkler thing your mouth sometimes does for no apparent reason.

One who draws penises on posters of women in the subway.

Someone who is obviously not doing what he went into the lavatory for.

People who say, "Can I have some more juice?" when they mean gravy.

Something that goes round and round but won't come off.

Someone who takes the morning off work in order to sign on.

A chronic inability to pick up underpants.

Hillwalking dialect for the stretch of concealed rough moorland which lies between what you thought was the top of the hill and what actually is.

A post-wank tristesse.

Conspicuously inconspicuous—as of a major celebrity entering a restaurant with a great display of being incognito.

The gooey drips of wax that dribble down the sides of a candle.

A lurid facial bruise that everyone politely omits to mention because it's obvious that you had a punch-up with your spouse last night—but which was actually caused by walking into a door. It is useless to volunteer the true explanation because nobody will believe it.

The cigarette end someone discovers in the mouthful of lager they have just swigged from a can at the end of a party.

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.

The part of a kitchen wall reserved for the schooltime daubings of small children.

The correct name for a junior apprentice greengrocer whose main duty is to arrange the fruit so that the bad side is underneath. From the name of a character not in Dickens.

The expression on the face of one whose joke has gone down rather well.

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."

One of the rather unfunny newspaper clippings pinned to an office wall, the humor of which is supposed to derive from the fact that the headline contains a name similar to that of one of the occupants of the office.

Someone who pins up snitters.

Office bulletin board on which snitters, cards saying "You don't have to be crazy to work here, but if you are, it helps!!!" and smutty postcards from Ibiza get pinned up by snitterbies.

The third recurrence of a winter cold.

One who is reduced to drinking coffee from his egg-cups in order to put off the dishwashing just one more week.

Descriptive of the state of serene self-knowledge reached through drink.

To break something in two while testing if you glued it together properly.

The practice of dribbling involuntarily into one's own pillow.

Uncovered bit between two shops with awnings, which you have to cross when it's raining.

A left-handed wanker.

To fritter away a perfectly good life pretending to develop film projects.

The toxic foam that clings to rocky foreshores.

That which has to be cleaned off castle floors in the morning after a bagpipe-playing contest or vampire attack.

A congressman whose contribution to politics is limited to saying "Hear, hear."

To tidy up a room before the cleaning lady arrives.

To remove precious objects from a room before a party.

Irritatingly cheerful in the morning.

A genital aftershave which is supposed to be catching on in the professional tennis circuit.

One who in answer to the question "How are you?" actually tells you.

A weewee that resembles a lawn sprinkler, caused by a shred of tissue paper covering the exit hole of the penis.

That part of a car, the unexpected need for the replacement of which causes garage bills to be four times larger than the estimate.

(Italian) Pissed off with waiting for a bus to arrive, a waiter to bring a menu or a genius to finish painting your ceiling.

A telephone number that you now can't find anywhere because two years ago you swore you would never speak to the person again.

The erection you cannot conceal because you are not wearing a jacket.

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 currently 25,368 steenhuffels working at the UN in New York.

A traditional street dance. This lovely old gigue can be seen at any time of the year in the streets of the City 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 syncopated way, you may be sure that a stelling minnis is taking place. The phenomenon is caused by the fact that the dancers are trying not to step on the cracks in the pavement in case the bears get them.

An unwelcome poke in the ribs by someone who hardly knows you.

"Mr Robert Maxwell stibbed Her Royal Highness repeatedly with his huby."

• The Times

The invisible brake pedal on the passenger's side of the car.

The small drink that someone nurses for hours so they can stay in the pub.

The tapping movements of an index finger on glass made by a person futilely attempting to communicate with either a tropical fish or a post office clerk.

Feeling a pregnant woman's tummy.

German word for the group of workers hired to lunch inside a string of highway cones, or skagway.

Long strip of paper or tape that has got tangled around the wheel of something.

Attractively miniature.

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.

Tiny melted plastic nodule which fails to help fasten a duvet cover.

A plumber's assistant who never knows where the actual plumber is.

Insolently polite, as of policemen who have stopped a motorist.

Sutton and cheam are the two kinds of dirt into which all dirt is divided. "Sutton" is the dark sort that always gets onto light-colored things, and "cheam" the light-colored sort that always clings onto dark items. Anyone who has ever found peanut butter stains on a dressshirt, or sea gull goo on a tuxedo, (a) knows all about sutton and cheam, and (b) is going to some very curious dinner parties.

An entire picnic lunch spent fighting off wasps.

A series of diversionary tactics used when trying to cover up the existence of a glossop, such as uttering a high-pitched laugh and pointing out of the window.

Completely shagged out after a hard day having income tax explained to you.

Using a special attachment to vacuum a sofa.

The little spoonful inside the lid of a recently opened boiled egg.

The look directed at you in a theater bar during the interval by people who've already got their drinks.

The sound of a rubber eraser coming to rest after dropping off a desk in a very quiet room.

To announce your entrance by falling over the trash can in the drive.

Disturbing things that the previous owners of your house have left in the cellar.

The geometrical figure which describes the "Ban the Bomb" sign or a car steering wheel.

To make loud noises during the night to let the burglars know you are in.

The belief that a Devon cream tea is not going to make you feel sick after you've eaten it.

The tuft of hair that grows between a man's eyebrows.

The little brass latch that fastens the front wall of a doll's house.

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.

The soul of a departed madman: one of those now known to inhabit the timing mechanisms of pop-up toasters.

The irritating man next to you at a concert who thinks he's the conductor.

To hold a ruler on one end of a desk and make the other end go bbddbbddbbrrbrrrrddrr.

A rucked-up edge of carpet or linoleum that everyone says someone will trip over and break a leg unless it gets fixed. After a year or two someone trips over it and breaks a leg.

Criss-cross wooden construction hung on a wall in a teenage girl's bedroom, which is covered with glass Bambis and poodles, matching pigs and porcelain ponies in various postures.

The corner of a toenail from which satisfying little black spots may be sprung.

The man-to-man chumminess adopted by an employer as a prelude to telling an employee that he's going to have to let him go.

(Of small nasty children) To fall over very gently, look around to see who's about and then yell blue murder.

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.

The first, sleepy morning stirrings of the penis.

The feeling of silver paper against your fillings.

The tiny meaningless perforations which infest brogues.

One whose idea of a good time is to stand behind his front hedge and give surly nods to people he doesn't know.

The business of talking amicably and aimlessly to your local bartender.

A crease or fold in an underblanket, the removal of which involves getting out of bed and largely remaking it.

What the police in Leith require you to say in order to prove that you are not drunk.

The chemical from which canned tomato soup is made.

The voice used by presenters on children's television programs.

Indonesian expression meaning "some time next month."

A car behind which one draws up at the traffic lights and honks at when the lights go green before realizing that the car is parked and there is no one inside.

Narrow but thickly grimed strip of floor between the fridge and the sink unit in the kitchen of a rented apartment.

Generic term for anything which comes out in a gush despite all your careful efforts to let it out gently, e.g., flour into a white sauce, tomato ketchup onto fried fish, sperm into a human being, etc.

The ridiculous two-inch hunch that people adopt when arriving late for the theater in the vain hope that it will minimize either the embarrassment or the lack of visibility for the rest of the audience.

To make a noise like a train crossing a set of points.

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 Trewoofe of Damocles."

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.

The useless epaulettes on an expensive raincoat.

Instinctive resentment of people younger than you.

A hideous wooden ornament that people hang over the mantelpiece to prove they've been to Africa.

A sexual liaison that is meant to be secret but that is in fact common knowledge.

An honest attempt to track down a clitoris.

A slurp of beer that has accidentally gone down your shirt collar.

The involuntary abdominal gurgling which fills the silence following someone else's intimate personal revelation.

The name given to the extensive collection of hats kept in the downstairs lavatory which don't fit anyone in the family.

A popular East 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.

Not susceptible to charm.

The ponytail affected by a middle-aged balding man.

The spittle that builds up on the floor of the orchestra pit of the Metropolitan Opera House.

An overdeveloped epiglottis found in middleaged coloraturas.

Clicking the jaw to unpop the ears.

The awful moment that follows a dorchester when a speaker weighs 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.

That part of a kitchen cupboard that contains an unnecessarily large number of milk jugs.

Sudden stab of hypocrisy that goes through the mind when taking vows as a godparent.

A small but immensely complex mechanical device that is essentially the "brain" of a modern coffee machine, and that enables the machine to make its own decisions.

An ornate headdress or loose garment worn by a person in the belief that it renders him invisibly native and not like a tourist at all. People who don huge conical straw coolie hats with "I luv Lagos" on them in Nigeria, or fat solicitors on holiday in Malaya who insist on appearing in the hotel lobby wearing a sarong, know what we are talking about.

The technical name for one of those huge trucks with whirling brushes on the bottom used to clean streets.

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 airplane seats.

The moistly 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."

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.

One who indicates from thirty yards across a crowded street that he has spotted you, wishes to speak with you and that you are required to remain rooted to the spot waiting for him.

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."

(Archaic) One who does not approve of araglins.

Something you only discover about somebody the first time they take their clothes off in front of you.

The paint in the catalog that is quite obviously yellow.

The bit of wood a cabbie removes so as to open his sliding window and give you the full benefit of his opinions.

A badly supressed yawn.

The large patches of sweat on the back of a hot man's T-shirt.

The hideous moment of confirmation that the disaster presaged in the ely has actually struck.

(Veterinary term) The operation to trace an object swallowed by a cow through all its seven stomachs. Hence, also, an expedition to find the new terminal at O'Hare Airport.

The uncontrollable twitching that breaks out when you're trying to get away from the most boring person at a party.

A moist penis.

A homicidal golf stroke.

A business card in your wallet belonging to someone whom you have no recollection of meeting.

A noise that occurs (often at 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.

The sort of person who impersonates telephones.

If, when talking to someone you know has only one leg, you're trying to treat them perfectly casually and normally, but find to your horror that your conversation is liberally studded with references to (a) Long John Silver, (b) Hopalong Cassidy, (c) the Hokey Pokey, (d) "putting your foot in it," (e) "the last leg of the UEFA competion," you are said to have committed a wigan.

To rip a Band-Aid off your skin as fast as possible in the hope that it will (a) show how brave you are and (b) not hurt.

Of a person whose heart is in the wrong place (i.e., between his legs).

The last drop that, no matter how much you shake it, always goes down your trouser leg.

A lost object which turns up immediately after you've gone and bought a replacement for it.

One who is mistakenly under the impression that he is charming.

A person in a restaurant who suggests to his companions that they should split the cost of the meal equally, and then orders two packs of cigarettes on the bill.

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.

Standing in the kitchen wondering what you came in here for.

A woman who can't get her lipstick on straight.

A kind of poltergeist that specializes in stealing new road atlases from your car.

A person who never actually gets around to doing anything because he spends all his time writing out lists headed "Things to Do (Urgent)."

Any seventeen-year-old who doesn't know about anything at all in the world other than bicycle gears.

The feeling after having tried to dry oneself with a damp towel.

Of a steel ball, to settle into a hole.

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 six feet, two inches tall.

The metal foil container which Chinese meals come in.

Moving in hurried desperation from one cubicle to another in a public lavatory trying to find one that has a lock on the door, a seat on the bowl and no brown streaks on the seat.

An illness which you know you've got but which the thermometer refuses to acknowledge.

To shout at foreigners in the belief that the louder you speak, the better they'll understand you.

Dishearteningly white piece of bread that sits limply in a pop-up toaster during a protracted throcking session.

A cross between a zebra and anything else which fancies zebras.

A "yes, maybe" which means "no."

A yes-man who is waiting to see whom it would be most advantageous to agree with.

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 mind since seeing the ad.

(Rare) The combined thrill of pain and shame when being caught in public plucking your nostril hairs and stuffing them into your side pocket.

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

A garment that even Zsa Zsa Gabor would not deign to wear.

A stranger who suddenly clutches an intimate part of your body and then pretends he did it to prevent himself from falling.

(Skiing term) To ski with "zeal monachorum" 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.

The particular kind of datedness which afflicts things that were originally designed to look futuristic.

Screeching skid made by cartoon character prior to turning around and running back in the opposite direction.

(Hungarian) A prince of the blood royal temporarily forced to seek employment as a waiter.

An irritating lump which sticks out from the main body. Hence:

1. A bit of cement which sits proud of 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.

One who pretends not to know that the muffler has fallen off his car.