Competition | 23 August 2008

James Young presents the latest competition

In Competition No 2558 you were invited to submit entries to Dr Johnson for inclusion in a 21st-century supplement to his dictionary.

At first the Doctor feared that too many of you were confining your definitions to the five examples he gave of the sort of thing he wanted. In the event he awarded first prize of £30 to the entrant who best defined these five examples — Brian Murdoch, albeit a Scotchman. The runners-up are Bill Greenwell and Basil Ransome-Davies, who win £20 each, while the other contributors get £5 for each definition used.

asbo a certification, notarised by a Justice, confirmatory of the fact that the bearer is a roisterer, scallywag, lummock or jailbird, though he be not in jail; possession of which is reckoned a mark of distinction amongst those justly called scapegallows.

blog an electronically medium whereby initiates convey uninteresting personal intimacies to the uninterested commonality.