The Meaning of Liff Read online

  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 someone 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 scarcely 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 conveyor belt, you will notice that on the next conveyor belt a solitary bag is 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 politicians 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 embarrassed. 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 pair 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 Ј6.95.

  GREAT WAKERING (participial 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 instrument 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' clothes together. Thousands of tiny pieces of jam 'hook' on to thousands of tiny-pieces of dribble, enabling the cloth to become 'sticky'.

  HALIFAX (n.)

  The green synthetic astroturf on which greengrocers display their vegetables.

  HAMBLEDON (n.)

  The sound of a single-engine aircraft flying by, heard whilst lying in a summer field in England, which somehow concentrates the silence and sense of space and timelessness and leaves one with a profound feeling of something or other.

  HAPPLE (vb.)

  To annoy people by finishing their sentences for them and then telling them what they really meant to say.

  HARBLEDOWN (vb.)

  To manoeuvre a double mattress down a winding staircase.

  HARBOTTLE (n.)

  A particular kind of fly which lives inside double glazing.

  HARPENDEN (n.)

  The coda to a phone conversion, consisting of about eight exchanges, by which people try gracefully to get off the line.

  HASELBURY PLUCKNETT (n.)

  A mechanical device for cleaning combs invented during the industrial revolution at the same time as Arkwright's Spinning Jenny, but which didn't catch on in the same way.

  HASSOP (n.)

  The pocket down the back of an armchair used for storing two-shilling bits and pieces of Lego.

  HASTINGS (pl.n.)

  Things said on the spur of the moment to explain to someone who comes into a room unexpectedly precisely what it is you are doing.

  HATHERSAGE (n.)

  The tiny snippets of beard which coat the inside of a washbasin after shaving in it.

  HAUGHAM (n.)

  One who loudly informs other diners in a restaurant what kind of man he is by calling for the chef by his christian name from the lobby.

&nbs
p; HAXBY (n.)

  Any garden implement found in a potating shed whose exact purpose is unclear.

  HEATON PUNCHARDON (n.)

  A violent argument which breaks out in the car on the way home from a party between a couple who have had to be polite to each other in company all evening.

  HENSTRIDGE (n.)

  The dried yellow substance found between the prongs of forks in restaurants.

  HERSTMONCEUX (n.)

  The correct name for the gold medallion worn by someone who is in the habit of wearing their shirt open to the waist.

  HEVER (n.)

  The panic caused by half-hearing Tannoy in an airport.

  HIBBING (n.)

  The marks left on the outside breast pocket of a storekeeper's overall where he has put away his pen and missed.

  HICKLING (participial vb.)

  The practice of infuriating teatregoers by not only arriving late to a centre-row seat, but also loudly apologising to and patting each member of the audience in turn.

  HIDCOTE BARTRAM (n.)

  To be caught in a hidcote bartram is to say a series of protracted and final goodbyes to a group of people, leave the house and then realise you've left your hat behind.

  HIGH LIMERIGG (n.)

  The topmost tread of a staircase which disappears when you've climbing the stairs in the darkness.

  HIGH OFFLEY (n.)

  Gossnargh (q.v.) three weeks later.

  HOBBS CROSS (n.)

  The awkward leaping manoeuvre a girl has to go through in bed in order to make him sleep on the wet patch.

  HODDLESDEN (n.)

  An 'injured' footballer's limb back into the game which draws applause but doesn't fool anybody.

  HODNET (n.)

  The wooden safety platform supported by scaffolding round a building under construction from which the builders (at almost no personal risk) can drop pieces of cement on passers-by.

  HOFF (vb.)

  To deny indignantly something which is palpably true.

  HOGGESTON (n.)

  The action of overshaking a pair of dice in a cup in the mistaken belief that this will affect the eventual outcome in your favour and not irritate everyone else.

  HORTON-CUM-STUDLEY (n.)

  The combination of little helpful grunts, nodding movements of the head, considerate smiles, upward frowns and serious pauses that a group of people join in making in trying to elicit the next pronouncement of somebody with a dreadful stutter.

  HOVE (adj.)

  Descriptive of the expression seen on the face of one person in the presence of another who clearly isn't going to stop talking for a very long time.

  HOYLAKE (n.)

  The pool of edible gravy which surrounds an inedible and disgusting lump of meat - eaten to give the impression that the person is 'just not very hungry, but mmm this is delicious'. Cf. Peaslake - a similar experience had by vegetarians.

  HUBY (n.)

  A half-erection large enough to be a publicly embarrassing bulge in the trousers, not large enough to be of any use to anybody.

  HUCKNALL (vb.)

  To crouch upwards: as in the movement of a seated person's feet and legs made in order to allow a cleaner's hoover to pass beneath them.

  HULL (adj.)

  Descriptive of the smell of a weekend cottage.

  HUMBER (vb.)

  To move like the cheeks of a very fat person as their car goes over a cattle grid.

  HUMBY (n.)

  An erection which won't go down when a gentleman has to go for a pee in the middle of making love to someone.

  HUNA (n.)

  The result of coming to the wrong decision.

  HUNSINGORE (n.)

  Medieval ceremonial brass horn with which the successful execution of an araglin (q.v.) is trumpeted from the castle battlements.

  HUTLERBURN (n.archaic)

  A burn sustained as a result of the behaviour of a clumsy hutler. (The precise duties of hutlers are now lost in the mists of history.)

  HUTTOFT (n.)

  The fibrous algae which grows in the dark, moist environment of trouser turn-ups.

  IBSTOCK (n.)

  Anything used to make a noise on a corrugated iron wall or clinker-built fence by dragging it along the surface while walking past it. 'Mr Bennett thoughtfully selected a stout ibstock and left the house.' - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, II.

  IPING (participial vb.)

  The increasingly anxious shifting from leg to leg you go through when you are desperate to go to the lavatory and the person you are talking to keeps on remembering a few final things he want to mention.

  IPSWICH (n.)

  The sound at the other end of the telephone which tells you that the automatic exchange is working very hard but is intending not actually to connect you this time, merely to let you know how difficult it is.

  JARROW (adj.)

  An agricultural device which, when towed behind a tractor, enables the farmer to spread his dung evenly across the width of the road.

  JAWCRAIG (n. medical)

  A massive facial spasm which is brought on by being told a really astounding piece of news. A mysterious attack of jawcraig affected 40,000 sheep in Whales in 1952.

  JURBY (n.)

  A loose woollen garment reaching to the knees and with three or more armholes, knitted by the wearer's well- meaning but incompetent aunt.

  KALAMI (n.)

  The ancient Eastern art of being able to fold road-maps properly.

  KANTURK (n.)

  An extremely intricate knot originally used for belaying the topgallant foresheets of a gaff-rigged China clipper, and now more commonly observed when trying to get an old kite out of the cupboard under the stairs.

  KEELE (adj.)

  The horrible smell caused by washing ashtrays.

  KELLING (participial vb.)

  A person searching for something, who has reached the futile stage of re-looking in all the places they have looked once already, is said to be kelling.

  KENT (adj.)

  Politely determined not to help despite a violent urge to the contrary. Kent expressions are seen on the faces of people who are good at something watching someone else who can't do it at all.

  KENTUCKEY (adv.)

  Fitting exactly and satisfyingly. The cardboard box that slides neatly into an exact space in a garage, or the last book which exactly fills a bookshelf, is said to fit 'real nice and kentuckey'.

  KERRY (n.)

  The small twist of skin which separated each sausage on a string.

  KETTERING (n.)

  The marks left on your bottom or thighs after sunbathing on a wickerwork chair.

  KETTLENESS (adj.)

  The quality of not being able to pee while being watched.

  KIBBLESWORTH (n.)

  The footling amount of money by which the price of a given article in a shop is less than a sensible number, in a vain hope that at least one idiot will think it cheap. For instance, the kibblesworth on a pair of shoes priced at Ј19.99 is 1p.

  KIMMERIDGE (n.)

  The light breeze which blows through your armpit hair when you are stretched out sunbathing.

  KINGSTON BAGPUISE (n.)

  A forty-year-old sixteen-stone man trying to commit suicide by jogging.

  KIRBY (n.)

  Small but repulsive piece of food prominently attached to a person's face or clothing. See also CHIPPING ONGAR.

  KIRBY MISPERTON (n.)

  One who kindly attempts to wipe an apparent kirby (q.v.) off another's face with a napkin, and then discovers it to be a wart or other permanent fixture, is said to have committed a 'kirby misperton'.

  KITMURVY (n.)

  Man who owns all the latest sporting gadgetry and clothing (gold trolley, tee cosies, ventilated shoes, Gary Player- autographed tracksuit top, American navy cap, mirror sunglasses) but is still only on his second gold lesson.

  KNOPTOFT (n.)

  The mysterious fluff placed in your pockets by dry-cleaning f
irms.

  KURDISTAN (n.)

  Hard stare given by a husband to his wife when he notices a sharp increase in the number of times he answers the phone to be told, 'Sorry, wrong number.'

  LAMLASH (n.)

  The folder on hotel dressing-tables full of astoundingly dull information.

  LARGOWARD (n.)

  Motorists' name for the kind of pedestrian who stands beside a main road and waves on the traffic, as if it's their right of way.

  LE TOUQUET (n.)

  A mere nothing, an unconsidered trifle, a negligible amount. Un touquet is often defined as the difference between the cost of a bottle of gin bought in an off-licence and one bought in a duty-free shop.

  LIFF (n.)

  A book, the contents of which are totally belied by its cover. For instance, any book the dust jacket of which bears the words. 'This book will change your life'.

  LIMERIGG (vb.)

  To jar one's leg as the result of the disappearance of a stair which isn't there in the darkness.