‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand,’ said my husband, ‘it’s scented candles.’ Now, we have never knowingly harboured a scented candle in the house. He was merely rebelling against the notion of hygge, named by Collins’ dictionaries as one of the words — English words — of 2016. The motive for naming it may stem from the dictionary wars mounted by rival publishers’ marketing departments, but hygge is indeed everywhere, not least bookshops, where the Christmas shelves offer Hygge, The Book of Hygge, The Little Book of Hygge, How to Hygge, Keep Calm and Hygge, The Cosy Hygge Winter Colouring Book. I’ll stop there.
What does it mean? ‘Cosiness’. It is a noun, pronounced hue-guh with the first vowel resembling that in French vu, then a hard g and an indeterminate vowel after it.
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