The Meaning of Liff Read online

  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.)
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  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.

  DORRIDGE (n.)

  Technical term for one of the lame excuses written in very small print on the side of packets of food or washing powder to explain why there's hardly anything inside. Examples include 'Contents may have settled in transit' and 'To keep each biscuit fresh they have been individually wrapped in silver paper and cellophane and separated with corrugated lining, a cardboard flap, and heavy industrial tyres'.

  DRAFFAN (n.)

  An infuriating person who always manages to look much more dashing that anyone else by turning up unshaven and hangover at a formal party.

  DREBLEY (n.)

  Name for a shop which is supposed to be witty but is in fact wearisome, e.g. 'The Frock Exchange', 'Hair Apparent', etc.

  DROITWICH (n.)

  A street dance. The two partners approach from opposite directions and try politely to get out of each other's way. They step to the left, step to the right, apologise, step to the left again, apologise again, bump into each other and repeat as often as unnecessary.

  DUBUQUE (n.)

  A look given by a superior person to someone who has arrived wearing the wrong sort of shoes.

  DUDOO (n.)

  The most deformed potato in any given collection of potatoes.

  DUGGLEBY (n.)

  The person in front of you in the supermarket queue who has just unloaded a bulging trolley on to the conveyor belt and is now in the process of trying to work out which pocket they left their cheque book in, and indeed which pair of trousers.

  DULEEK (n.)

  Sudden realisation, as you lie in bed waiting for the alarm to go off, that it should have gone off an hour ago.

  DULUTH (adj.)

  The smell of a taxi out of which people have just got.

  DUNBAR (n.)

  A highly specialised fiscal term used solely by turnstile operatives at Regnet's Part zoo. It refers to the variable amount of increase in the variable gate takings on a Sunday afternoon, caused by persons going to the zoo because they are in love and believe that the feeling of romance will be somehow enhanced by the smell of panther sweat and rank incontinence in the reptile house.

  DUNBOYNE (n.)

  The moment of realisation that the train you have just patiently watched pulling out of the station was the one you were meant to be on.

  DUNCRAGGON (n.)

  The name of Charles Bronson's retirement cottage.

  DUNGENESS (n.)

  The uneasy feeling that the plastic handles of the overloaded supermarket carrier bag you are carrying are getting steadily longer.

  DUNTISH (adj.)

  Mentally incapacitated by severe hangover.

  EAST WITTERING (n.)

  The same as west wittering (q.v.) only it's you they've trying to get away from.

  EDGBASTON (n.)

  The spare seat-cushion carried by a London bus, which is placed against the rear bumper when the driver wishes to indicate that the bus has broken down. No one knows how this charming old custom originated or how long it will continue.

  ELY (n.)

  The first, tiniest inkling you get that something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong.

  EMSWORTH (n.)

  Measure of time and noiselessness defined as the moment between the doors of a lift closing and it beginning to move.

  EPPING (participial vb.)

  The futile movements of forefingers and eyebrows used when failing to attract the attention of waiters and barmen.

  EPSOM (n.)

  An entry in a diary (such as a date or a set of initials) or a name and address in your address book, which you haven't the faintest idea what it's doing there.

  EPWORTH (n.)

  The precise value of the usefulness of epping (q.v.) it is a little-known fact than an earlier draft of the final line of the film Gone with the Wind had Clark Gable saying 'Frankly my dear, i don't give an epworth', the line being eventually changed on the grounds that it might not be understood in Cleveland.

  ERIBOLL (n.)

  A brown bubble of cheese containing gaseous matter which grows on welsh rarebit. It was Sir Alexander Flemming's study of eribolls which led, indirectly, to his discovery of the fact that he didn't like welsh rarebit very much.

  ESHER (n.)

  One of those push tapes installed in public washrooms enabling the user to wash their trousers without actually getting into the basin. The most powerful esher of recent years was 'damped down' by Red Adair after an incredible sixty-eight days' fight in Manchester's Piccadilly Station.

  EVERSCREECH (n.)

  The look given by a group of polite, angry people to a rude, calm queue-barger.

  EWELME (n.)

  The smile bestowed on you by an air hostess.

  EXETER (n.)

  All light household and electrical goods contain a number of vital components plus at least one exeter. If you've just mended a fuse, changed a bulb or fixed a blender, the exeter is the small, flat or round plastic or bakelite piece left over which means you have to undo everything and start all over again.

  FAIRYMOUNT (vb.n.)

  Polite word for buggery.

  FARDUCKMANTON (n. archaic)

  An ancient edict, mysteriously omitted from the Domesday Book, requiring that the feeding of fowl on village ponds should be carried out equitably.

  FARNHAM (n.)

  The feeling you get about four o'clock in the afternoon when you haven't got enough done.

  FARRANCASSIDY (n.)

  A long and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to undo someone's bra.

  FEAKLE (vb.)

  To make facial expressions similar to those that old gentlemen make to young girls in the playground.

  FINUGE (vb.)

  In any division of foodstuffs equally between several people, to give yourself the extra slice left over.

  FIUNARY (n.)

  The safe place you put something and then forget where it was.

  FLIMBY (n.)

  One of those irritating handle-less slippery translucent plastic bags you get in supermarkets which, no matter how you hold them, always contrive to let something fall out.

  FLODIGARRY (n. Scots)

  An ankle-length gabardine or oilskin tarpaulin worn by deep-sea herring fishermen in Arbroath and publicans in Glasgow.

  FOINDLE (vb.)

  To queue-jump very discreetly by working one's way up the line without being spotted doing so.

  FORSINAIN (n. archaic)

  The right of the lord of the manor to molest dwarves on their birthdays.

  FOVANT (n.)

  A taxi driver's gesture, a raised hand pointed out of the window which purports to mean 'thank you' and actually means 'fuck off out of the way'.

  FRADDAM (n.)

  The small awkward-shaped piece of cheese which remains after grating a large regular-shaped piece of cheese and enables you to cut your fingers.

  FRAMLINGHAM (n.)

  A kind of burglar alarm usage. It is cunningly designed so that it can ring at full volume in the street without apparently disturbing anyone. Other types of framlingams are burglar alarms fitted to business premises in residential areas, which go off as a matter of regular routine at 5.31 p.m. on a Friday evening and do not get turned off til 9.20 a.m. on Monday morning.

  FRANT (n.)

  Measure. The legal minimum distance between two trains on the District and Circle line of the London Underground. A frant, which must be not less than 122 chains (or 8 leagues) long, is not connected in any way with the adjective 'frantic' which comes to us by a completely different route (as indeed d
o the trains).

  FRATING GREEN (adj.)

  The shade of green which is supposed to make you feel comfortable in hospitals, industrious in schools and uneasy in police stations.

  FRIMLEY (n.)

  Exaggerated carefree saunter adopted by Norman Wisdom as an immediate prelude to dropping down an open manhole.

  FRING (n.)

  The noise made by light bulb which has just shone its last.

  FROLESWORTH (n.)

  Measure. The minimum time it is necessary to spend frowning in deep concentration at each picture in an art gallery in order that everyone else doesn't think you've a complete moron.

  FROSSES (pl.n.)

  The lecherous looks exchanged between sixteen-year-olds at a party given by someone's parents.

  FULKING (participial vb.)

  Pretending not to be in when the carol-singers come round.

  GALASHIELS (pl.n.)

  A form of particularly long sparse sideburns which are part of the mandatory uniform of British Rail guards.

  GALLIPOLI (adj.)

  Of the behaviour of a bottom lip trying to spit mouthwash after an injection at the dentist. Hence, loose, floppy, useless. 'She went suddenly Gallipoli in his arms' - Noel Coward.