The Meaning of Liff (2 page)

A nipple clearly defined through flimsy or wet material.

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

BULDOOO

a virulent red-coloured pus which generally accompanies clonmult (q.v.) and sandberge (q.v.)

BURBAGE

The sound made by a liftful of people all trying 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 peculiarly 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 incessant throcking (q.v.)

BURSLEDON

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

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 pleasurable 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 tassels 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 disgust 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 commissionaire or cleaning lady in order to avoid any further actual work. The opening gambit is usually designed to provoke the maximum confusion, and therefore the longest possible clabby conversation. It is vitally 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 dispose 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. Briskly vague. Firmly uninformative.

CLONMULT (n.)

A yellow ooze usually found near secretions 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.)

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.

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 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 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 absolutely 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, recognise 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 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 'Haaaaaallllloooo!' as if to say 'Good grief!! You!! Here!! Of all people! Will I never. Coo. Stab 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.) much too early as they are still a good thirty yards apart. They were embarrassed 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 demands 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 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 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 craftwork - 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 hundred 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.) Prunelike 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 (participial vb.)

The process of trying 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 causing 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.