Douglas Adams. The Meaning of Liff AASLEAGH (n.) A liqeur made only for drinking at the end of a revoltingly long bottle party when all the drinkable drink has been drunk. ABERBEEG (vb.) Of amateur actors, to adopt a Mexican accent when called upon to play any variety of foreigner (except Pakistanis - from whom a Welsh accent is considered sufficient). ABERCRAVE (vb.) To strongly desire to swing from the pole on the rear footplate of a bus. ABERYSTWYTH (n.) A nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant than the thing being yearned for. ABILENE (adj.) Descriptive of the pleasing coolness on the reverse side of the pillow. ABINGER (n.) One who washes up everything except the frying pan, the cheese grater and the saucepan which the chocolate sauce has been made in. ABOYNE (vb.) 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. ACLE (n.) The rouge pin which shirtmakers conceal in the most improbable fold of a new shirt. Its function is to stab you when you don the garment. ADLESTROP (n.) That 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. ADRIGOLE (n.) The centrepiece of a merry-go-round on which the man with the tickets stands unnervingly still. AFFCOT (n.) The sort of fart you hope people will talk after. AFFPUDDLE (n.) A puddle which is hidden under a pivoted paving stone. You only know it's there when you step on the paving stone and the puddle shoots up your leg. AGGLETHORPE (n.) A dispute between two pooves in a boutique. AHENNY (adj.) The way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves. AIGBURTH (n.) Any piece of readily identifiable anatomy found amongst cooked meat. AINDERBY QUERNHOW (n.) One who continually bemoans the 'loss' of the word 'gay' to the English language, even though they had never used the word in any context at all until they started complaining that they couldn't use it any more. AINDERBY STEEPLE (n.) One who asks you a question with the apparent motive of wanting to hear your answer, but who cuts short your opening sentence by leaning forward and saying 'and I'll tell you why I ask...' and then talking solidly for the next hour. AINSWORTH (n.) The length of time it takes to get served in a camera shop. Hence, also, how long we will have to wait for the abolition of income tax or the Second Coming. AIRD OF SLEAT (n. archaic) Ancient Scottish curse placed from afar on the stretch of land now occupided by Heathrow Airport. AITH (n.) The single bristle that sticks out sideways on a cheap paintbrush. ALBUQUERQUE (n.) A shapeless squiggle which is utterly unlike your normal signature, but which is, nevertheless, all you are able to produce when asked formally to identify yourself. Muslims, whose religion forbids the making of graven images, use albuquerques to decorate their towels, menu cards and pyjamas. ALDCLUNE (n.) One who collects ten-year-old telephone directories. ALLTAMI (n.) The ancient art of being able to balance the hot and cold shower taps. AMBLESIDE (n.) A talk given about the Facts of Life by a father to his son whilst walking in the garden on a Sunday afternoon. AMERSHAM (n.) The sneeze which tickles but never comes. (Thought to derive from the Metropolitan Line tube station of the same name where the rails always rattle but the train never arrives.) AMLWCH (n.) A British Rail sandwich which has been kept soft by being regulary washed and resealed in clingfilm. ARAGLIN (n. archaic) A medieval practical joke played by young squires on a knight aspirant the afternoon he is due to start his vigil. As the knight arrives at the castle the squires attempt to raise the drawbridge very suddenly as the knight and his charger step on to it. ARDCRONY (n.) A remote acquaintance passed off as 'a very good friend of mine' by someone tring to impress people. ARDSCALPSIE (n.) Excuse made by rural Welsh hairdresser for completely massacring your hair. ARDSCULL (n.) Excuse made by rural Welsh hairdresser for deep wounds inflicted on your scalp in an attempt to rectify whatever it was that induced the ardscalpsie (q.v.). ARDSLIGNISH (adj.) Adjective which describes the behaviour of Sellotape when you are tired. ARTICLAVE (n.) A clever architectural construction designed to give the illusion from the top deck of a bus that it is far too big for the road. AYNHO (vb.) Of waiters, never to have a pen. BABWORTH Something which justifies having a really good cry. BALDOCK The sharp prong on the top of a tree stump where the tree has snapped off before being completely sawn through. BALLYCUMBER One of the six half-read books lying somewhere in your bed. BANFF Pertaining to, or descriptive of, that kind of facial expression which is impossible to achieve except when having a passport photograph taken. BANTEER A lusty and reucous old ballad sung after a particulary spectacular araglin (q.v.) has been pulled off. BARSTIBLEY A homorous device such as a china horse or smalled naked porcelain infant which jocular hosts use of piss water into your Scotch with. BAUGHURST That kind of large fierce ugly woman who owns a small fierce ugly dog. BAUMBER A fitted eleasticated bottom sheet which turns your mattress bananashaped. BEALINGS The unsavoury parts of a moat which a knight has to pour out of his armour after being the victim of an araglin (q.v.). In medieval Flanders, soup made from bealins was a very sligthly sought-after delicacy. BEAULIEU HILL The optimum vantage point from which one to view people undressing in the bedroom across the street. BECCLES The small bone buttons placed in bacon sandwiches by unemploymed guerrilla dentist. BEDFONT A lurching sensation in the pit of the stomach experienced at breakfast in a hotel, occasioned by the realisation that it is about now that the chamber- maid will have discovered the embarrassing stain on your botton sheet. BELPER A knob of someone else's chewing gum which you unexpectedly find your hand resting on under a deks top, under the passenger seat of your car or on somebody's thigh under their skirt. BENBURB The sort of man who becomes a returning officer. BEREPPER The irrevocable and sturdy fart released in the presence of royalty, which sounds quite like a small motorbike passing by (but not enough to be confused with one). BERKHAMSTED The massive three-course midmorning blow-out enjoyed by a dieter who has already done his or her slimming duty by having a teaspoonful of cottage cheese for breakfast. BERY POMEROY 1. The shape of a gourmet's lips. 2. The droplet of saliva which hangs from them. BILBSTER A pimple so hideous and enormous that you have to cover it with sticking plaster and pretend you've cut yourself shaveing. BISHOP'S CAUNDLE An opening gambit before a game of chess whereby the missing pieces are replaced by small ornaments from the mantelpiece. BLEAN Scientific measure of luminosity : 1 glimmer = 100,000 bleans. Usherettes' torches are designed to produce between 2.5 and 4 bleans, enabling them to assist you in falling downstairs, treading on people or putting your hand into a Neapolitan tub when reaching for change. BLITHBURY A look someone gives you by which you become aware that they're much too drunk to have undertood anything you've said to them in the last twenty minutes. BLITTERLESS The little slivers of bomboo picked off a cane chair by a nervous guest which litter the carpet beneath and tell the chair's owner that the whole piece of furniture is about to uncoil terribly and slowly until it resembles a giant pencil sharpening. BODMIN 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. BOLSOVER One of those brown plastic trays with bumps on, placed upside down in boxes of chocolates to make you think you're-getting two layers. BONKLE Of plumbing in old hotels, to make loud and unexplained noises in the nigth, particulary at about five o'clock in the morning. BOOLTEENS The small scatterings of foreign coins and half-p's which inhabit dressing tables. Since they are never used and never thrown away boolteens account for a significant drain on the world's money supply. BOOTHBY GRAFFOE 1. The man in the pub who slaps people on the back as if they were old friends, when in fact he has no friends, largely on account of this habit. 2. Any story told by Robert Morley on chat shows. BOSCASTLE A huge pyramid of tin cans placed just inside the entrance to a supermarket. BOSEMAN One who spends all day loafing about near pedestrian crossing looking as if he's about to cross. BOTCHERBY The princible by which British roads are signposted. BOTLEY The prominent stain on a man's trouser crotch seen on his return from the lavatory. A botley proper is caused by an accident with the push taps, and should not be confused with any stain caused by insufficient waggling of the willy. BOTOLPHS Huge benign tumours which archdeacons and old chemisty teachers affect to wear on the sides of their noses. BOTUSFLEMING A small, long-handled steel trowel used by surgeons to remove the contents of a patient's nostrils prior to a sinus operation. BRADFORD A school teacher's old hairy jacket, now severely discoloured by chalk dust, ink, egg and the precipitations of uneditying chemical reactions. BRADWORTHY One who is skilled in the art of naming loaves. BRECON That part of the toenail which is designed to snag on nylon sheets. BRISBANE A perfectly resonable explanation (Such as the one offered by a person with a gurgling cough which has nothing to do with the fact that they smoke fifty cigarettes a day.) BROATS A pair of trousers with a career behind them. Broats are most commonly seen on elderly retired army officers. Orginally the brats were part of their best suit back in the thirties; then in the fifties they were demonted and used for gardening. Recently pensions not being what they were, the broats have been called out of retirement and reinstated as part of the best suit again. BROMPTON A bromton is that which is said to have been committed when you are convinced you are about to blow off with a resounding trumpeting noise in a public place and all that acually slips out is a tiny 'pfpt'. BROMSGROVE Any urban environment containing a small amount of dogturd and about forty-five tons of bent steel pylon or a lump of concrete with holes claiming to be scuplture. 'Oh, come my dear, and come with me. And wander 'neath the bromsgrove tree' - Betjeman. BROUGH SOWERBY One who has been working at that same desk in the same office for fifteen years and has very much his own ideas about why he is continually passed over for promotion. BRUMBY The fake antique plastic seal on a pretentious whisky bottle. BRYMBO The single unappetising bun left in a baker's shop after four p.m. BUDBY A nipple clearly defined thorugh flimsy or wet matereal. BUDE A polite joke reserved for use in the presence of vicars. BULDOOO a virulent red-coloured pus which genereally accompanies clonmult (q.v.) and sandberge (q.v.) BURBAGE The sound made by a liftful of people all tring to breathe politely through their noses. BURES The scabs on knees and elbows formed by a compulsion to make love on cheap Habitat floor-matting. BURLESTON That peculary tuneless humming and whistling adopted by people who are extremely angry. BURLINGJOBB A seventeenth-century crime by which excrement is thrown into the street from a ground-floor window. BURNT YATES Condition to which yates (q.v.) will suddenly pass without any apparent interviewing period, after the spirit of the throckmorton (q.v.) has finally been summoned by incressant throcking (q.v.) BURSLEDON The bluebottle one is too tired to get up and start, but not tired enough to sleep thorugh. BURTON COGGLES A bunch of keys found in a drawer whose purpose has long been forgotten, and which can therefore now be used only for dropping down people's backs as a cure for nose-bleeds. BURWASH The pleasureable cool sloosh of puddle water over the toes of your gumboots. CAARNDUNCAN (n.) The high-pitched and insistent cry of the young female human urging one of its peer group to do something dangerous on a cliff-edge or piece of toxic waste ground. CAIRNPAT (n.) A large piece of dried dung found in mountainous terrain above the cowline which leads the experienced tracker to believe that hikers have recently passed. CAMER (n.) A mis-tossed caber. CANNOCK CHASE (n.) In any box of After Eight Mints, there is always a large number of empty envelopes and no more that four or five actual mints. The cannock chase is the process by which, no matter which part of the box often, you will always extract most of the empty sachets before pinning down an actual minot, 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 tree quarters of an inch of charcoal. The term is also used to describe futile attempts to pursue unscrupulous advertising agencies who nick your ideas to sell chocolates with. CHENIES (pl.n.) The last few sprigs or tassles of last Christmas's decoration you notice on the ceiling while lying on the sofa on an August afternoon. CHICAGO (n.) The foul-smelling wind which precedes an underground railway train. CHIPPING ONGAR (n.) The discust and embarrassment (or 'ongar') felt by an observer in the presence of a person festooned with kirbies (q.v.) when they don't know them well enough to tell them to wipe them off, invariably this 'ongar' is accompanied by an involuntary staccato twitching of the leg (or 'chipping') CLABBY (adj.) A 'clabby' conversation is one stuck up by a commissionare or cleaning lady in order to avoid any futher actual work. The opening gambit is usually designed to provoke the maximum confusion, and therefore the longest possible clabby conversation. It is vitaly important to learn the correct, or 'clixby' (q.v.), responses to a clabby gambit, and not to get trapped by a 'ditherington' (q.v.). For instance, if confronted with a clabby gambit such as 'Oh, mr Smith, I didn't know you'd had your leg off', the ditherington response is 'I haven't....' whereas the clixby is 'good.' CLACKAVOID (n.) Technical BBC term for a page of dialogue from Blake's Seven. CLACKMANNAN (n.) The sound made by knocking over an elephant's-foot umbrella stand full of walking sticks. Hence name for a particular kind of disco drum riff. CLATHY (adj.) Nervously indecisive about how safely to dispost of a dud lightbulb. CLENCHWARTON (n. archaic) One who assists an exorcist by squeezing whichever part of the possessed the exorcist deems useful. CLIXBY (adj.) Politely rude. Bliskly vague. Firmly uninformative. CLONMULT (n.) A yellow ooze usually found near secretionns of buldoo (q.v.) and sadberge (q.v.) CLOVIS (q.v.) One who actually looks forward to putting up the Christmas decorations in the office. CLUN (n.) A leg which has gone to sleep and has to be hauled around after you. CLUNES (pl.n.) People who just won't go. CONDOVER (n.) One who is employed to stand about all day browsing through the magazine racks in the newsagent. CONG (n.) Stange-shaped metal utensil found at the back of the saucepan cupboard. Many authorities believe that congs provide conclusive proof of the existence of a now extinct form of yellow vegetable which the Victorians used to boil mercilessly. CORFE (n.) An object which is almost totally indistinguishable from a newspaper, the one crucial difference being tat it belongs to somebody else and is unaccountably much more interesting that your own - which may otherwice appear to be in all respects identical. Though it is a rule of life that a train or other public place may contain any number of corfes but only one newspaper, it is quite possible to transform your own perfectly ordinary newspaper into a corfe by the simple expedient of letting somebody else read it. CORFU (n.) The dullest person you met during the course of your holiday. Also the only one who failed to understand that the exchanging of addresses at the end of a holiday is merely a social ritual and is absolutly not an invitation to phone you up and turn up unannounced on your doorstep three months later. CORRIEARKLET (n.) The moment at which two people approaching from opposite ends of a long passageway, recognice each other and immediately pretend they haven't. This is to avoid the ghastly embarrassment of having to continue recognising each other the whole length of the corridor. CORRIECRAVIE (n.) To avert the horrors of corrievorrie (q.v.) corriecravie is usually employed. This is the cowardly but highly skilled process by which both protagonists continue to approach while keeping up the pretence that they haven't noticed each other - by staring furiously at their feet, grimacing into a notebook, or studying the walls closely as if in a mood of deep irritation. CORRIEDOO (n.) The crucial moment of false recognition in a long passageway encouter. Though both people are perfectly well aware that the other is approaching, they must eventually pretend sudden recognition. They now look up with a glassy smile, as if having spotted each other for the firt time, (and are particulary delighted to have done so) shouting out 'Haaaaaallllloooo!' as if to say 'Good grief!! You!! Here!! Of all people! Will I never. Coo. Stap me vitals, etc.' CORRIEMOILLIE (n.) The dreadful sinking sensation in a long passageway encounter when both protagonists immediately realise they have plumped for the corriedoo (q.v.) mutch too early as they are still a good thirty yards apart. They were embarrased by the pretence of corriecravie (q.v.) and decided to make use of the corriedoo because they felt silly. This was a mistake as corrievorrie (q.v.) will make them seem far sillier. CORRIEVORRIE (n.) Corridor etiquette demans that one a corriedoo (q.v.) has been declared, corrievorrie must be employed. Both protagonists must now embellish their approach with an embarrassing combination of waving, grinning, making idiot faces, doing pirate impressions, and waggling the head from side to side while holding the other person's eyes as the smile drips off their face, until with great relief, they pass each other. CORRIEMUCHLOCH (n.) Word describing the kind of person who can make a complete mess of a simple job like walking down a corridor. CORSTORPHINE (n.) A very short peremptory service held in monasteries prior to teatime to offer thanks for the benediction of digestive biscuits. COTTERSTOCK (n.) A piece of wood used to stir paint and thereafter stored uselessly in a shed in perpetuity. CRAIL (n. mineral) Crail is a common kind of rock or gravel found widely across the British Isles. Each individual stone (due to an as yet undiscovered gravtitaional property) is charged with 'negative buoyancy'. This means that no matter how much crail you remove from the garden, more of it will rise to the surface. Crail is much employed by the Royal Navy for making the paperweights and ashtrays used inside submarines. CRANLEIGH (n.) A mood of irrational irritation with everyone and everything. CROMARTY (n.) The brittle sludge which clings to the top of ketchup bottles and plastic tomatoes in nasty cafes. CURRY MALLET (n.) A large wooden or rubber cub which poachers use to despatch cats or other game which they can only sell to Indian resturants. For particulary small cats the price obtainable is not worth the cost of expending ammunition. DALRYMPLE (n.) Dalarymples are the things you pay extra for on pieces of hand-made crarftwork - the rough edges, the paint smudges and the holes in the glazing. DAMNAGLAUR (n.) A certain facial expression which actors are required to demonstrate their mastery of before they are allowed to play Macbeth. DARENTH (n.) Measure = 0.0000176 mg. Defined as that amount of margarine capable of covering one hounred slices of bread to the depth of one molecule. This is the legal maximum allowed in sandwich bars in Greater London. DEAL (n.) The gummy substance found between damp toes. DEEPING ST NICHOLAS (n.) What street-wise kids do at Christmas. They hide on the rooftops waiting for Santa Claus so that if he arrives and goes down the chimney, they can rip stuff off from his sleigh. DES MOINES (pl.n.) The two little lines which come down from your nose. DETCHANT (n.) That part of a hymn (usually a few notes at the end of a verse) where the tune goes so high or low that you suddenly have to change octaves to accommodate it. DETCHANT (n.) (Of the hands or feet.) Preunelike after an overlong bath. DIDCOT (n.) The tiny oddly-shaped bit of card which a ticket inspector cuts out of a ticket with his clipper for no apparent reason. It is a little-known fact that the confetti at Princess Margaret's wedding was made up of thousands of didcots collected by inspectors on the Royal Train. DIDLING (participal vb.) The process of tring to work out who did it when reading a whodunnit, and trying to keep your options open so that when you find out you can allow yourself to think that you knew perfectly well who it was all along. DILLYTOP (n.) The kind of bath plug which for some unaccountable reason is actually designed to sit on top of the hole rather than fit into it. DIBBLE (vb.) To try to remove a sticky something from one hand with the other, thus causeing it to get stuck to the other hand and eventually to anything else you try to remove it with. DITHERINGTON (n) Sudden access to panic experienced by one who realises that he is being drawn inexorably into a clabby (q.v.) conversion, i.e. one he has no hope of enjoying, benefiting from or understanding. DITTISHAM (n.) Any music you hear on the radio to which you have to listen very carefully to determine whether it is an advertising jingle or a bona fide record. DOBWALLS (pl.n.) The now hard-boiled bits of nastiness which have to be prised off crockery by hand after it has been through a dishwasher. DOBWALLS (pl.n.) The now hard-boiled bits of nastiness which have to be prised off crockery by hand after it has been through a dishwasher. DOCKERY (n.) Facetious behaviour adopted by an accused man in the mistaken belief that this will endear him to the judge. DOGDYKE (vb.) Of dog-owners, to adopt the absurd pretence that the animal shitting in the gutter is nothing to do with them. DOLEGELLAU (n.) The clump, or cluster, of bored, quietly enraged, mildly embarrassed men waiting for their wives to come out of a changing room in a dress shop. DORCHESTER (n.) A throaty cough by someone else so timed as to obscure the crucial part of the rather amusing remark you've just made. DORRIDGE (n.) Technical term for one of the lame excuses written in very small print on the side of packets of food or washing powder to explain why there's hardly anything inside. Examples include 'Contents may have settled in transit' and 'To keep each biscuit fresh they have been individually wrapped in silver paper and cellophane and separated with courrugated lining, a carboard flap, and heavy industrial tyres'. DRAFFAN (n.) An infuriating person who always manages to look much more dashing that anyone else by turning up unshaven and hungover at a formal party. DREBLEY (n.) Name for a shop which is supposed to be witty but is in fact wearisome, e.g. 'The Frock Exchange', 'Hair Apparent', etc. DROITWICH (n.) A street dance. The two partners approach from opposite directions and try politely to get out of each other's way. They step to the left, step to the right, apologise, step to the left again, apologise again, bump into each other and repeat as often as unnecessary. DUBUQUE (n.) A look given by a superior person to someone who has arrived wearing the wrong sort of shoes. DUDOO (n.) The most deformed potato in any given collection of potatoes. DUGGLEBY (n.) The person in front of you in the supermarket queue who has just unloaded a bulging trolley on to the conveyor belt and is now in the process of trying to work out which pocket they left their cheque book in, and indeed which pair of trousers. DULEEK (n.) Sudden realisation, as you lie in bed waiting for the alarm to go off, that it should have gone off an hour ago. DULUTH (adj.) The smell of a taxi out of which people have just got. DUNBAR (n.) A highly specialised fiscal term used solely by trunstile operatives at Regnet's Part zoo. It refers to the variable amount of increase in the variable gate takings on a Sunday afternoon, caused by persons going to the zoo because they are in love and believe that the feeling of romace will be somehow enhanced by the smell of panther sweat and rank incontinence in the reptile house. DUNBOYNE (n.) The moment of realisation that the train you have just patiently watched pulling out of the station was the one you were meant to be on. DUNCRAGGON (n.) The name of Charles Bronson's retirement cottage. DUNGENESS (n.) The uneasy feeling that the plastic handles of the overloaded supermarket carrier bag you are carrying are getting steadily longer. DUNTISH (adj.) Mentally incapacitated by severe hangover. EAST WITTERING (n.) The same as west wittering (q.v.) only it's you they've trying to get away from. EDGBASTON (n.) The spare seat-cushion carried by a London bus, which is placed against the rear bumper when the driver wishes to indicate that the bus has broken down. No one knows how this charming old custon orginated or how long it will continue. ELY (n.) The first, tiniest inkling you get that something, somewhere, has gone teribly wrong. EMSWORTH (n.) Measure of time and noiselessness defined as the moment between the doors of a lift closing and it beginning to move. EPPING (participial vb.) The futile movements of forefingers and eyebrows used when failing to attract the attention of waiters and barmen. EPSOM (n.) An entry in a diary (such as a date or a set of initials) or a name and address in your address book, which you haven't the faintest idea what it's doing there. EPWORTH (n.) The preciese value of the usefulness of epping (q.v.) it is a little-known fact than an earlier draft of the final line of the film Gone with the Wind had Clark Gable saying 'Frankly my dear, i don't give an epworth', the line being eventually changed on the grounds that it might not be understood in Cleveland. ERIBOLL (n.) A brown bubble of cheese containing gaseous matter which grows on welsh rarebit. It was Sir Alexander Flemming's study of eribolls which led, indirectly, to his discovery of the fact that he didn't like welsh rarebit very much. ESHER (n.) One of those push tapes installed in public washrooms enabling the user to wash their trousers without actually getting into the basin. The most powerful esher of recent years was 'damped down' by Red Adair after an incredible sixty-eight days' fight in Manchester's Piccadilly Station. EVERSCREECH (n.) The look given by a group of polite, angry people to a rude, calm queuebarger. EWELME (n.) The smile bestowed on you by an air hostess. EXETER (n.) All light household and electrical goods contain a number of vital components plus at least one exeter. If you've just mended a fuse, changed a bulb or fixed a blender, the exeter is the small, flat or round plastic or bakelite piece left over which means you have to undo everything and start all over again. FAIRYMOUNT (vb.n.) Polite word for buggery. FARDUCKMANTON (n. archaic) An ancient edict, mysteriously omitted from the Domesday Book, requiring that the feeding of fowl on village ponds should be carried out equitably. FARNHAM (n.) The feeling you get about four o'clock in the afternoon when you haven't got enough done. FARRANCASSIDY (n.) A long and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to undo someone's bra. FEAKLE (vb.) To make facial expressions similar to those that old gentlemen make to young girls in the playground. FINUGE (vb.) In any divisjon of foodstuffs equally between several people, to give yourself the extra slice left over. FIUNARY (n.) The safe place you put something and then forget where it was. FLIMBY (n.) One of those irritating handle-less slippery translucent plastic bags you get in supermarkets which, no matter how you hold them, always contrive to let something fall out. FLODIGARRY (n. Scots) An ankle-length gaberdine or oilskin tarpaulin worn by deep-sea herring fishermen in Arbroath and publicans in Glasgow. FOINDLE (vb.) To queue-jump very discretly by working one's way up the line without being spotted doing so. FORSINAIN (n. archaic) The right of the lord of the manor to molest dwarves on their birthdays. FOVANT (n.) A taxi driver's gesture, a raised hand pointed out of the window which purports to mean 'thank you' and actually means 'fuck off out of the way'. FRADDAM (n.) The small awkward-shaped piece of cheese which remains after grating a large regular-shaped piece of cheese and enables you to cut your fingers. FRAMLINGHAM (n.) A kind of burglar alarm usage. It is cunningly designed so that it can ring at full volume in the street without apparently disturbing anyone. Other types of framlingams are burglar alarms fitted to business premises in residential areas, which go off as a matter of regular routine at 5.31 p.m. on a Friday evening and do not get turned off til 9.20 a.m. on Monday morning. FRANT (n.) Measure. The legal minimum distance between two trains on the District and Circle line of the London Underground. A frant, which must be not less than 122 chains (or 8 leagues) long, is not connected in any way with the adjective 'frantic' which comes to us by a completely different route (as indeed do the trains). FRATING GREEN (adj.) The shade of green which is supposed to make you feel comfortable in hospitals, industrious in schools and uneasy in police stations. FRIMLEY (n.) Exaggerated carefree saunter adopted by Norman Wisdom as an immediate prelude to dropping down an open manhole. FRING (n.) The noise made by light bulb which has just shone its last. FROLESWORTH (n.) 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've a complete moron. FROSSES (pl.n.) The lecherous looks exchanged between sixteen-year-olds at a party given by someone's parents. FULKING (participial vb.) Pretendig not to be in when the carol-singers come round. GALASHIELS (pl.n.) A form of particulary long sparse sideburns which are part of the mandatory uniform of British Rail guards. GALLIPOLI (adj.) Of the behaviour of a bottom lip trying to spit mouthwash after an injection at the dentist. Hence, loose, floppy, useless. 'She went suddenly Gallipoli in his arms' - Noel Coward. GANGES (n. rare : colonial Indian) Leg-rash contracted from playing too much polo. (It is a little-known fact that Prince Charles is troubled by ganges down the inside of his arms.) GASTARD (n.) Useful specially new-coined word for an illegitimate child (in order to distinguish it from soneone who merely carves you up on the motorway, etc.) GILDERSOME (adj.) Descriptive of a joke someone tells you which starts well, but which becomes so embellished in the telling that you start to weary of it after scarely half an hour. GIPPING (participial vb.) The fish-like opening and closing of the jaws seen amongst people who have recently been to the dentist and are puzzled as to whether their teeth have been put back the right way up. GLASGOW (n.) The feeling of infinite sadness engendered when walking through a place filled with happy people fifteen years younger than yourself. GLASSEL (n.) A seaside pebble which was shiny and interesting when wet, and which is now a lump of rock, which children nevertheless insist on filing their suitcases with after the holiday. GLAZELEY (adj.) The state of a barrister's flat greasy hair after wearing a wig all day. GLEMENUILT (n.) The kind of guilt which you'd completely forgotten about which comes roaring back on discovering an old letter in a cupboard. GLENTAGGART (n.) A particular kind of tartan hold-all, made exclusive under licence for British Airways. When waiting to collect your luggage from an airport conveyour belt, you will notice that on the next consingle, solitary bag going round and round uncollected. This is a glentaggart, which has been placed there by the baggage-handling staff to take your mind off the fact that your own luggage will shortly be landing in Murmansk. GLENTIES (pl.n.) Series of small steps by which someone who has made a serious tactical error in a conversion or argument moves from complete disagreement to wholehearted agreement. GLENWHILLY (n. Scots) A small tartan pouch worn beneath the kilt during the thistle-harvest. GLINSK (n.) A hat which politicans but to go to Russia in. GLORORUM (n.) One who takes pleasure in informing others about their bowel movements. GLOSSOP (n.) A rouge blob of food. Glossops, which are generally streaming hot and highly adhesive invariably fall off your spoon and on to the surface of your host's highly polished antique-rosewood dining table. If this has not, or may not have, been noticed by the company present, swanage (q.v.) may be employed. GLUTT LODGE (n.) The place where food can be stored after having a tooth extracted. Some Arabs can go without sustenance for up to six weeks on a full glutt lodge, hence the expression 'the shit of the dessert'. GLOADBY MARWOOD (n.) Someone who stops Jon Cleese on the street and demands that he does a funny walk. GODALMING (n.) Wonderful rush of relief on discovering that the ely (q.v.) and the wembley (q.v.) were in fact false alarms. GOLANT (adj.) Blank, sly and faintly embarrasssed. Pertaining to the expression seen on the face of someone who has clearly forgotten your name. GOOLE (n.) The puddle on the bar into which the barman puts your change. GOOSECRUIVES (pl. n. archaic) A parit of wooden trousers worn by poultry-keepers in the Middle Ages. GOOSNARGH (n.) Something left over from preparing or eating a meal, which you store in the fridge despite the fact that you know full well you will never ever use it. GREAT TOSSON (n.) A fat book containing four words and six cartoons which cost £6.95. GREAT WAKERING (participal vb.) Panic which sets in when you badly need to go to the lavatory and cannot make up your mind about what book or magazine to take with you. GREELEY (n.) Someone who continually annoys you by continually apologising for annoying you. GRETNA GREEN (adj.) A shade of green which cartoon characters dangle over the edge of a cliff. GRIMMET (n.) A small bush from which cartoon characters dangle over the edge of a cliff. GRIMSBY (n.) A lump of something gristly and foultasting concealed in a mouthful of stew or pie. Grimsbies are sometimes merely the result of careless cookery, but more often they are placed there deliberately by Freemasons. Grimbies can be purchased in bulk from any respectable Masonic butcher on giving him the secret Masonic handbag. One is then placed correct masonic method of dealing with it. If the guest is not a Mason, the host may find it entertaining to watch how he handles the obnoxious object. It may be (a) manfully swallowed, invariably bringing tears to the eyes. (b) chewed with resolution for up to twenty minutes before eventually resorting to method (a) (c) choked on fatally. The Masonic handshake is easily recognised by another Mason incidentally, for by it a used grimsby is passed from hand to hand. The secret Masonic method for dealing with a grimsby is as follows : remove it carefully with the silver tongs provided, using the left hand. Cross the room to your host, hopping on one leg, and ram the grimsby firmly up his nose, shouting, 'Take that, you smug Masonic bastard.' GRINSTEAD (n.) The state of a lady's clothing after she has been to powder her nose and has hitched up her tights over her skirt at the back, thus exposing her bottom, and has walked out without noticing it. GUERNSEY (adj.) Queasy but umbowed. The kind of feeling one gets when discovering a plastic compartment in a fridge in which thing are growing. GWEEK (n.) A coat hanger recycled as a car aerial. HADZOR (n.) A sharp instument placed in the washing-up bowl which makes it easier to cut yourself. HAGNABY (n.) Someone who looked a lot more attractive in the disco than they do in your bed the next morning. HALCRO (n.) An adhesive fibrous cloth used to hold babies'