LIFF REVISITED Part 1

In The Meaning of Liff (Pan 1983), John Lloyd and the late, lamented Douglas Adams used place names to give words to the 'many hundreds of common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all know and recognize, but for which no words exist'. Here at VitQ, I decided to contrive some new Liff-style definitions. More will follow soon:

BINGHAM (n) - an especially irritating ring-tone

BOGNOR REGIS (n) - the one writer on Heat magazine who actually does watch Hollyoaks

CHATSWORTH - (n) - a noisy gaggle of office workers who, having spent all day detesting work, are now happily talking about it for hours in the pub

CLOUGH (n) - an hefty and ostentatious shock of frizzy grey hair cultivated by women of a certain age and ilk. Also known as the 'salt-and-pepper helmet'

CLUNTON (n) - someone you eventually meet after an amiable email correspondence who has forgotten to inform you that they are endlessly tiresome in real life

DREGHORN (n) - a seething right-wing article in the Daily Mail actually written to order by a left-wing twenty-something hack with dinky spectacles eating a hoisin duck wrap

DULWICH (n) - one who is smugly au fait with which wine goes with what food and which should be chilled, even though the protocol will be changed again next week

DUNFERMLINE (n) - the embossed lettering which books must, by law, have on their covers in order to be on sale in airports

FLAXBY (n) - a misunderstood phrase in an email which leads you to think an acquaintance hates you or is developing an unhealthy crush

GISSING (participial vb) - being undecided as to whether the tide is coming in or going out

KELSO (n) - the last piece of toilet roll which is glued to the cardboard tube

LUCKETT (vb) - to sound like Coldplay yet still sell like hot cakes

LUDWORTH (n) - one who perpetrates the myth that older equals wiser

MAMBLE (n) - an awkward dance, often wrongly called salsa, which is performed by a gathering of women with cloughs (qv) at arts centre evening classes

MOFFAT (n) - an understandable error, such as mixing up Cole Porter and Irving Berlin during a game of Trivial Pursuit

MOSTYN (n) - an annoying boy in glasses who remembers you

NYBSTER (n) - a small, flat ethnic hat often found perched on a clough (qv)

QUILQUOX (vb, rare) - to attempt to calculate the likely percentage of people alive who have impersonated a chicken

SCALBY (adj) - capable of being fooled repeatedly by rave reviews into buying a new REM album with only two good tracks

SNAVE (vb) - to hit 'Send & Receive' again, convinced that you are far too popular and important not to have any email

STANBOROUGH (n) - a particularly hard game of FreeCell

STARBOTTON - (n) - a meteorite which almost certainly won't hit and destroy the Earth in a few decades time, but which is a good excuse to fill a space in a newspaper

TATTERSET (n) - a display of merchandise (eg sweatshirts, key rings, own brand condiments) on sale in a trendy café-bar, which no one wants

TAUCHERS (n pl) - the two stinkers in an otherwise good book of short stories

TREEN (vb) - to find yourself legitimately but uncomfortably in a hotel above your station

TULLOES (n) - the quivering in the jaw of someone who has been listening to a chatsworth (qv) for more than an hour

TUMBY (n) - the artistic hobby of a non-artistic person

WARMWELL (n) - the particular contentment felt by two local historians who meet and fall in love

WENDLING (n) - the electricity-like unease felt in the index finger when having to use an old-fashioned phone with a dial

WIGTOFT (n) - the correct name for the terrifying teenage hairstyle nicknamed the 'Hoxton fin'

YARLET - (n) a comely young woman who dances near a swimming pool in a rap video

Source: by RcL (with a tip of the hat to Lloyd and Adams)