The Meaning of Liff (6 page)

OBWESTRY (abs.n.)

Bloody-minded determination on part of a storyteller to continue a story which both the teller and the listeners know has become desperately tedious.

OUGHTERBY (n.)

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

OUNDLE (vb.)

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

OZARK (n.)

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

PABBY (n.,vb.)

(Fencing term.) The play, or manoeuvre, where one swordsman leaps on to the table and pulls the battleaxe off the wall.

PANT-Y-WACCO (adj.)

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

POPCASTLE (n.)

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

PAPPLE (vb.)

To do what babies do to soup with their spoons.

PAPWORTH EVERARD (n.)

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

PEEBLES (pl.n.)

Small, carefully rolled pellets of skegness (q.v.)

PELUTHO (n.)

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

PEN-TRE-TAFARN-Y-FEDW (n.)

Welsh word which literally translates as 'leaking-biro-by-the-glass-hole-of-the-clerk-of-the-bank-has-been-taken-to-another-place-leaving-only-the-special-inkwell-and-three-inches-of-tin-chain'.

PEORIA (n.)

The fear of peeling too few potatoes.

PERCYHORNER (n.)

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

PERRANZABULOE (n.)

One of those spray things used to wet ironing with.

PEVENSEY (n. archaic)

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

PIDDLETRENTHIDE (n.)

A trouser stain caused by a wimbledon (q.v.). Not to be confused with a botley (q.v.)

PIMLICO (n.)

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

PIMPERNE (n.)

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

PITLOCHRY (n.)

The background gurgling noise heard in Wimby Bars caused by people trying to get the last bubbles out of their milkshakes by slurping loudly through their straws.

PITSLIGO (n.)

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

PLEELEY (adj.)

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

PLYMOUTH (vb.)

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

PLYMPTON (n.)

The (pointless) knob on top of a war memorial.

PODE HOLE (n.)

A hole drilled in chipboard lavatory walls by homosexuals for any one of a number of purposes.

POGES (pl.n.)

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

POLBATHIC (adj.)

Gifted with ability to manipulate taps using only the feet.

POLLOCH (n.)

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

POLPERRO (n.)

A polperro is the ball, or muff, of soggy hair found clinging to bath overflow-holes.

POONA (n.)

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

POTT SHRIGLEY (n.)

Dried remains of a week-old casserole, eaten when extremely drunk at two a.m.

PUDSEY (n.)

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

QUABBS (pl.n.)

The substances which emerge when you squeeze a blackhead.

QUALL (vb.)

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

QUEDGELEY (n.)

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

QUEENZIEBURN (n.)

Something that happens when people make it up after an agglethorpe (q.v.)

QUENBY (n.)

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

QUERRIN (n.)

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

QUOYNESS (n.)

The hatefulness of words like 'relionus' and 'easiephit'.

RAMSGATE (n.)

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

RANFURLY (adj.)

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

RECULVER (n.)

The sort of remark only ever made during Any Questions.

RIPON (vb.)

(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.

ROCHESTER (n.)

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

ROYSTON (n.)

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

RUNCORN (n.)

A peeble (q.v.) which is larger that a belper (q.v.)

SADBERGE (n.)

A violent green shrub which is ground up, mixed with twigs and gelatine and served with clonmult (q.v.) and buldoo (q.v.) in a container referred to for no known reason as a 'relish tray'.

SAFFRON WALDEN (n.)

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

SAVERNAKE (vb.)

To sew municipal crests on to a windcheater in the belief that this will make the wearer appear cosmopolitan.

SCAMBLEBY (n.)

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

SCETHROG (n.)

One of those peculiar beards-without-moustaches worn by religious Belgians and American scientists which help them look like trolls.

SCONSER (n.)

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

SCOPWICK (n.)

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

SCORRIER (n.)

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

SCOSTHROP (vb.)

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

SCRABBY (n.)

A curious-shaped duster given to you by your mother which on closer inspection turns out to be half an underpant.

SCRABSTER (n.)

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

SCRAMOGE (vb.)

To cut oneself whilst licking envelopes.

SCRANTON (n.)

A person who, after the declaration of the bodmin (q.v.), always says,'... But I only had the tomato soup.'

SCRAPTOFT (n.)

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

SCREEB (n.)

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

SCREGGAN (n. banking)

The crossed-out bit caused by people putting the wrong year on their cheques all through January.

SCREMBY (n.)

The dehydrated felt-tip pen attached by a string to the 'Don't Forget' board in the kitchen which has never worked in living memory but which no one can be bothered to throw away.

SCROGGS (n.)

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

SCRONKEY (n.)

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

SCULLET (n.)

The last teaspoon in the washing up.

SEATTLE (vb.)

To make a noise like a train going along.

SHALUNT (n.)

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

SHANKLIN (n.)

The hoop of skin around a single slice of salami.

SHENANDOAH (n.)

The infinite smugness of one who knows they are entitled to a place in a nuclear bunker.

SHEPPY (n.)

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

SHIFNAL (n.,vb.)

An awkward shuffling walk caused by two or more people in a hurry accidentally getting into the same segment of revolving door. A similar effect is achieved by people entering three-legged races unwisely joined at the neck instead of the ankles.

SHIRMERS (pl.n.)

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

SHOEBURYNESS (abs.n.)

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

SHRIVENHAM (n.)

One of Germaine Greer's used-up lovers.

SIDCUP (n.)

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

SILESIA (n. medical)

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

SILLOTH (n.)

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

SIMPRIM (n.)

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

SITTINGBOURNE (n.)

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

SKEGNESS (n.)

Nose excreta of a malleable consistency.

SKELLOW (adj.)

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

SKENFRITH (n.)

The flakes of athlete's foot found inside socks.

SKETTY (n.)

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

SKIBBEREEN (n.)

The noise made by a sunburned thighs leaving plastic chair.

SLIGO (n.)

An unnamed and exotic sexual act which people like to believe that famous films stars get up to in private. 'To commit slingo.'

SLOGARIE (n.)

Hillwalking dialect for the seven miles of concealed rough moorland which lie between what you though was the top of the hill and what actually is.

SLUBBERY (n.)

The gooey drips of wax that dribble down the sides of a candle so beloved by Italian restaurants with Chianti bottles instead of wallpaper.

SLUGGAN (n.)

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