A tribute to The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd
Thursday, October 09, 2003
LIFF REVISITED
In the wonderful 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'. As an offshoot of my trivia blog Vitamin Q, I decided (with a tip of the hat to Lloyd and Adams) to contrive some new Liff-style definitions. Here they are - I'll be adding more, so do bookmark. Remember this is one long alphabetical post, so the new stuff will not always be at the top!
BAGBY - a frightening and unwieldy bra which more resembles an instrument of torture
BALMULLO (n) - an awkward sensation caused by knowing something unpleasant (someone being sacked, a boil being lanced) is happening right now in the next room
BINGHAM (n) - an especially irritating ring-tone
BOATH (vb) - to steel oneself eg for an injection or a washing machine repair man's estimate
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
CHETTLE (vb) - to stand there wondering why a fly flies round and round the light fitting
CLOUGH (n) - an enormous 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 a lengthy email correspondence who has forgotten to inform you that they are enormously tiresome in real life
CRIEFF (n) - a specialised type of fine, statically-charged dust which attaches itself to a television screen
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 and 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
FOBBING (participial vb) - running one's thumb-nail round a roll of sticky tape, searching ever more desperately for the cut end
FOOLOW (vb) - to not know the words of a song but to mumble along to it nevertheless
FOXUP (n) - a loud and lengthy argument about hunting between two people with exactly the same views on the subject but who don't want to let that interfere with the pleasure of arguing
GISSING (participial vb) - being undecided as to whether the tide is coming in or going out
GREAT WITLEY (n) - a hilarious joke which somehow isn't hilarious when you try to tell it
GRIMINISH (n) - a rarefied and confusing form of the English language in which computer error messages are composed
GRITLEY (n) - a specific mixture of anxiety and territorial indignation experienced only by the elderly and brought on by having booked train seats
HIDCOTE BOYCE (n) - the modern female social faux pas of not showing one's underwear in public
JOHNBY (n) - the special wave given to one another by bus drivers
KELSO (n) - the last piece of toilet roll which is glued to the cardboard tube
KELTY (n) - a piece of clothing which no longer fits or suits you but which you keep due to its part in a memory of a notable bedroom encounter
LEUCHARS (pl n) - the tiny, white congealed pieces which swirl in coffee when the milk has turned
LITTLE PETHERICK (n) - A small measure. One little petherick is the tiny discrepancy between wanting to join a political protest and not wanting to be seen with the sort of people who protest, which keeps you at home listening to the radio
LUCKETT (vb) - to sound like Coldplay yet still sell like hot cakes
LUDWORTH (n) - one who perpetrates the myth that older equals wiser
LUXULYAN (n) - a pink, tooth-rotting chemical liquid being marketed as a 'juice drink sensation'
MALCOLM'S POINT (n, math.) - This mathematical theorem describes the relationship between the space given to an ingredient on packaging and the actual amount in the food within eg the delicious picture of chunks of gammon and the large word HAM on a 'Cheese and Ham Slice' and the tiny words 'ham (4%) on the ingredients list
MAMBLE (n) - an awkward dance, often wrongly called salsa, which is done by a herd of women with cloughs (qv) at arts centre evening classes
MENABILLY (n rare) - a short-lived musical genre (circa 1973-4), a cross between rockabilly and Welsh male voice choir singing, the best remembered example being Valley Cat by The Teds of Tredegar
MIDDLEZOY (n dial.) - Yorkshire term for a middle child, one who can lay no claim to the winsome terms 'our eldest' and 'the babby of t' family'
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 - a small, flat ethnic hat often found atop a clough (qv)
PLAXTOL (adj, vb) - jaunty; to jauntily drum along with music (derived from the technical percussion term for the clappy bit in the Friends theme tune)
PLUMSTEAD (n) - the sort of middle aged man who shows himself a fool by declaring that he 'doesn't suffer fools gladly'
QUILQUOX (vb, rare) - to attempt to calculate the likely percentage of people alive who have impersonated a chicken
RAGNALL (n) - the one tattered magazine used as bait by a bogus Big Issue seller
SCALBY (adj) - capable of being fooled repeatedly by rave reviews into buying a new REM album with only two good tracks
SKIPWITH (n) - a recent form of frothy repetitive jazz music invented solely for use in the dull bits of DIY and antiques programmes
SLAD (vb) - to be wilfully obese
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 for filling a space in a newspaper
TATTERSET (n) - a display of merchandise (eg sweatshirt, key rings, own brand condiments) on sale in a trendy 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
TRISLAIG (n) - the trinity of wide-brimmed hat, salt-and-pepper beard and checked cream shirt worn at jazz gigs and weekend parties by newly-retired, middle class men
TULLOES (n) - the quivering in the jaw of someone who has been listening to a chatsworth (qv) for more than an hour
TURVEY (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 uneasy electrical sensation 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 young woman who dances near a swimming pool in a rap video
In the wonderful 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'. As an offshoot of my trivia blog Vitamin Q, I decided (with a tip of the hat to Lloyd and Adams) to contrive some new Liff-style definitions. Here they are - I'll be adding more, so do bookmark. Remember this is one long alphabetical post, so the new stuff will not always be at the top!
BAGBY - a frightening and unwieldy bra which more resembles an instrument of torture
BALMULLO (n) - an awkward sensation caused by knowing something unpleasant (someone being sacked, a boil being lanced) is happening right now in the next room
BINGHAM (n) - an especially irritating ring-tone
BOATH (vb) - to steel oneself eg for an injection or a washing machine repair man's estimate
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
CHETTLE (vb) - to stand there wondering why a fly flies round and round the light fitting
CLOUGH (n) - an enormous 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 a lengthy email correspondence who has forgotten to inform you that they are enormously tiresome in real life
CRIEFF (n) - a specialised type of fine, statically-charged dust which attaches itself to a television screen
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 and 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
FOBBING (participial vb) - running one's thumb-nail round a roll of sticky tape, searching ever more desperately for the cut end
FOOLOW (vb) - to not know the words of a song but to mumble along to it nevertheless
FOXUP (n) - a loud and lengthy argument about hunting between two people with exactly the same views on the subject but who don't want to let that interfere with the pleasure of arguing
GISSING (participial vb) - being undecided as to whether the tide is coming in or going out
GREAT WITLEY (n) - a hilarious joke which somehow isn't hilarious when you try to tell it
GRIMINISH (n) - a rarefied and confusing form of the English language in which computer error messages are composed
GRITLEY (n) - a specific mixture of anxiety and territorial indignation experienced only by the elderly and brought on by having booked train seats
HIDCOTE BOYCE (n) - the modern female social faux pas of not showing one's underwear in public
JOHNBY (n) - the special wave given to one another by bus drivers
KELSO (n) - the last piece of toilet roll which is glued to the cardboard tube
KELTY (n) - a piece of clothing which no longer fits or suits you but which you keep due to its part in a memory of a notable bedroom encounter
LEUCHARS (pl n) - the tiny, white congealed pieces which swirl in coffee when the milk has turned
LITTLE PETHERICK (n) - A small measure. One little petherick is the tiny discrepancy between wanting to join a political protest and not wanting to be seen with the sort of people who protest, which keeps you at home listening to the radio
LUCKETT (vb) - to sound like Coldplay yet still sell like hot cakes
LUDWORTH (n) - one who perpetrates the myth that older equals wiser
LUXULYAN (n) - a pink, tooth-rotting chemical liquid being marketed as a 'juice drink sensation'
MALCOLM'S POINT (n, math.) - This mathematical theorem describes the relationship between the space given to an ingredient on packaging and the actual amount in the food within eg the delicious picture of chunks of gammon and the large word HAM on a 'Cheese and Ham Slice' and the tiny words 'ham (4%) on the ingredients list
MAMBLE (n) - an awkward dance, often wrongly called salsa, which is done by a herd of women with cloughs (qv) at arts centre evening classes
MENABILLY (n rare) - a short-lived musical genre (circa 1973-4), a cross between rockabilly and Welsh male voice choir singing, the best remembered example being Valley Cat by The Teds of Tredegar
MIDDLEZOY (n dial.) - Yorkshire term for a middle child, one who can lay no claim to the winsome terms 'our eldest' and 'the babby of t' family'
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 - a small, flat ethnic hat often found atop a clough (qv)
PLAXTOL (adj, vb) - jaunty; to jauntily drum along with music (derived from the technical percussion term for the clappy bit in the Friends theme tune)
PLUMSTEAD (n) - the sort of middle aged man who shows himself a fool by declaring that he 'doesn't suffer fools gladly'
QUILQUOX (vb, rare) - to attempt to calculate the likely percentage of people alive who have impersonated a chicken
RAGNALL (n) - the one tattered magazine used as bait by a bogus Big Issue seller
SCALBY (adj) - capable of being fooled repeatedly by rave reviews into buying a new REM album with only two good tracks
SKIPWITH (n) - a recent form of frothy repetitive jazz music invented solely for use in the dull bits of DIY and antiques programmes
SLAD (vb) - to be wilfully obese
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 for filling a space in a newspaper
TATTERSET (n) - a display of merchandise (eg sweatshirt, key rings, own brand condiments) on sale in a trendy 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
TRISLAIG (n) - the trinity of wide-brimmed hat, salt-and-pepper beard and checked cream shirt worn at jazz gigs and weekend parties by newly-retired, middle class men
TULLOES (n) - the quivering in the jaw of someone who has been listening to a chatsworth (qv) for more than an hour
TURVEY (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 uneasy electrical sensation 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 young woman who dances near a swimming pool in a rap video
